QUADRILLE VOL 5 NO 4 BENNINGTON COLLEGE ACTING EDITOR: Leslie Ullman MANAGING EDITOR: Joanna Clark Swayze '70 ALUMNI EDITOR: Catherine Cumpston, Alumni Director "In the self is housed.. . a "EQUALIZING THE PRESSURES FROM WITHOUT" 2 place of stability In an unstable world." Excerpts from the Commencement Address by Anais Nin QUADRILLE is published four times a year by the Development Office at Bennington College. It is designed to reflect the views and opinions of students, faculty, administration, alumni, trustees, parents of students, and friends of the College. The editors of QUADRILLE invite articles, statements, opinion and comment, letters to the editor, photographs, graphics, and reviews from members of all the constituencies.

FINDING A VOICE THROUGH MOVEMENT EDITOR'S NOTE An Interview with five Dance Majors To create is to make a kind of leap. What one can be fairly sure of is a point of beginning and a point of ending; in between, there may be a succession of starts and stops. and elements of risk, insight, frustration and discipline whose action can be defined only in retrospect. Having completed one, two, twenty works, a person is never quite sure of having a formula to create another. It is partially this uncertainty, we are sometimes told by paternal, aging artists with healthy portfolios and closets full of notebooks, that makes people keep creating. BARBARA MORGAN: INNER DIALOGUES We hope to show how the creative process applies to more than what appears WITH THE EXTERNAL WORLD in museums, libraries, and theatres. How it is part of what makes people get up, go somewhere, behave a certain way. How it is that primary. But as a mechanism of behavior, the creative process is also fragile in that it can disintegrate if one tries to become too aware of it in operation. So we have had to be careful. And especially, the people who speak in this issue have had to be careful. In the following pages, several students discuss the experience of putting together their final theses, exhibits, and concerts this spring. Dance photographer Barbara Morgan shares feelings about work she has been doing for forty years. Alumna and investment counselor Wilhelmina Eaton traces some of ".. . If you get hooked on the personal detours and discoveries that led to her choice of profession. A one thing good and solid An Interview with the Blousteins 38 then you can experiment philosophy student interprets art critic Clement Greenberg's comments, made at with everything else." Bennington this spring, on the aims of art. Through this collection of individual statements and approaches, problems are examined such as how one copes with a "block," how to invent with someone else or under the guidance of a tutor, how to know if something is "finished," what effect an audience may have on a given work or on the feelings of the artist, how one might continue to grow as an artist COVER Antoinette Jacobson '71 or professional on one's own. Ideas are circulated that relate to the effects of success, the accommodation of failure, the relevance of chance encounters or 18 AT MID-THESIS Comments by Chris Stahl 21 "WHAT WOULD YOU everyday habits to an original idea. Excerpts from the Commencement Address RATHER BE, A DOCTOR OR A NURSE?" Pat Barr-Webster POEMS FROM by Anais Nin open the entire sequence with an emphasis on solitude and self- By 23 awareness; an interview with Ed and Ruth Ellen Bloustein on their forthcoming "THE ICE INSPECTOR" A Creative Thesis by Denise Provost 26 THE PATH OF move to Rutgers ends the sequence with the expression of their openness to the ONE "BENNINGTON-TRAINED SPIRIT" By Wilhelmina Eaton '50 SOME next step -the forceful, flexible attitude they take to the business of living. 28 It is significant that a year ago a QUADRILLE about "making things" would not STATEMENTS BY ART MAJORS 30 CIRKOOKOOSS A Project by Caroline have been even possibleto put together, much less a natural reflection of what Simonds and Deborah Borda 34 CLEMENT GREENBERG'S "BENNINGTON people were thinking about. To recognize, refine, and communicate an image of SEMINARS" A Critique by Susan Unger 42 NOTES FROM COMMONS one's own makes demands on personal energies which are often directed - or owed - to external causes. The demands from the outside certainly have not GALLEYS 46 FACULTY NOTES 48 EVENTS 50 WINDFEST By Karen Oram diminished; but this spring they were at least less urgent, less evocative of what '72 52 GRADUATION 1971 54 ALUMNI NOTES 56 REUNION 59 AnaisNin describes as "mass hypnotism." Many people around Bennington had ALUMNI CLASS NOTES more time to explore the landscape of concepts that arise from intense creative PHOTO CREDITS By Joanna Clark Swayze '70 except where indicated. activity. and to explore themselves as the initiators. And the fact that so many thought about their discoveries and were willing to discuss them, was something QUADRILLE BENNINGTON COLLEGE we found very exciting. Quadrille I "EQUALIZING THE PRESSURES FROM WITHOUT" Excerpts from Paris-born AnaisNin, formerly a dancer, assistant to renowned psychoanalyst the Commencement Address Otto Rank, and operator of her own printing press, is best known as a writer. Three volumes of her Diary have been published by Harcourt since 1966 and she by Anais Nin is author of a critical study on D.H. Lawrence and of several novels and short stories. Both her fiction and the Diary have been especially well received among members of the postwar generation, who have found in them not only a reflection of a rich and mobile life, but the expression of their own concern with individual consciousness and individual liberation.

There was a taboo once, against looking into oursel.ves. This taboo is lifting. We have paid a very high price for it. with that second birth that we are able to offer other people a genuine self to which they can respond with confidence. One wonders why the journey into the self should be so terribly necessary at this We have two great fears of this rebirth. We have a fear of looking inward because we moment. It is because the more space we discover and the larger the universe becomes don't know what we will find and nobody can guide us except the psychologist. If we think and the more we learn and the farther we project ourselves into the adventurous outer of making the journey alone we are afraid. The other fear we have is of sharing the self; world, then the stronger we have to build an inner world. We have to equalize the and yet in this sharing is the only human, warm, near contact that we can know. The pressures from without. In the self is housed the human being; the heart and the feelings. Welsh people have a beautiful word for it which means the kind of talk that leads to It is a place of stability in an unstable world. intimacy. This is a kind of talk we cannot do unless we know ourselves and admit to our As most of you probably know, I found this out through the experience of the Diary. The feelings and recognize our dreams. Diary began when I was eleven years old and was being uprooted; when my family was The idea that it is necessary to return to the self in order to find stability and, more being separated and I was never to see my father again. The Diary became for me what important, that it is necessary to find the self in order to find others, especially applies to the Thailand people call "The House of the Spirit" - a little refuge within a strange land this moment in the history of woman. It is terribly important that women proceed first of and a strange language. This is how I first learned how we need this inner journey as all toward liberation from within, through a knowledge of themselves. There are really no much as we need the outer ones. generalizations, no slogans; each woman has to work out a pattern for herself. She has to Our culture had laid great stress on extroversion, and for a long time the idea of being find out where she is situated, what her difficulties are, what the obstacles are. And so preoccupied with the self - even the occupation of writing a diary, or of being at all she will find many of those obstacles are from within. And that a change from within concerned with one's-growth as I was -was considered almost sinful. As a child I used to makes an incalculable change on the outside; it affects everyone with whom she comes in remove the earth from under the flowers because I wanted to see how things grew - contact. which was a very scientific interest but which destroyed the flowers. I was able to do that One of the dangers of the loss of self is contagion - the facility with which we engage much more successfully in the Diary, destroying nothing, but watching this organic, in mass movements without even knowing what we are doing. Mass hypnotism. This is cellular, day-by-day discipline and work by which the self becomes something that can the way by which many countries have been led to great disasters. We have not realized resist catastrophe, can resist transplantation, can resist all the strange and unstable that the taboo on individual development is a terrible thing for the life of the community. things our world hands us. - An unhappy man is a danger to society; a happy man is a great profit to society. And It has taken us time to understand that the taboo on the self results in alienation from ultimately, when I speak of raising the quality of the human being, I speak of shaping the others and from society. We never realized that we wereallenatedfrom others and from human being who will form the aggregate that we call society, that we call community society insofar as we were alienated from ourselves. Because after all, we are a camera, living. We forget that the quality of the group depends on the quality of each individual. we are the senses, we are a receptable of the feelings of others. If this camera, if this The responsibility remains with us to grow to the fullest extent and to the greatest ex- receptivity is not cultivated as much as possible, then how can we receive from others the pansion ... We already know our evils are not cur(Jble by changes of systems ... messages that they send us? What I most wanted to bring you tonight was faith. And the faith that I found most This inner journey and quest of self demands a great deal of peeling off of the falsities, stable in life, the only one that never failed me, was the faith that I could at least change of the hypocricies, of the prejudices. As R.D. Laing describes, we must reach a pure core myself if I couldn't change others; that I could at least, by changing myself, inspire and - the genuine self - a self that is independent of the religion, of the family, of the encourage others. This faith was justified by the Diary, which became useful to others and culture in which we live. We have to begin again, really. We have to be reborn. And it is which proved that attending to individual growth is not a selfish or an egocentric oc- cupation, but is instead a gift we can give to society.

2 Quadrille Quadrille 3 started working on. It was like a Japanese rock it up to my intuition at first as to what I enjoyed garden, where you have a closed-in space covered doing. I tried different movement phrases, looking with light-colored gravel, and some big boulders in the mirror to see what worked and what didn't that are very dark. When you look at it, the feeling and imposing outside stimuli on what I was doing. I you get for the whole space is that it's very open would turn on a record at a slow speed and fasten and that these dark shapes shape the entire space. movement to that and see how it changed when I I also tried some movements that didn't relate to speeded up the music. And one day I was too lazy An dance, that I had seen in other places. I'd been to take off my boots, so I started tapping around doing a project for another class on special children and I think that's how I came up with that tap dance Interview who hove either organic or emotional disturbances, at the end of the piece. And with the idea of using and a lot of the movements I used came from tests boots as part of the costume. I fiddled around with with that were given to these kids to see whether the lights to give the set a mood to fit the way I was Five . difficulties were organic or environmental. What I feeling. And then I went back to relying on my tried to do with the movement was to create the intuition to put everything together. I think that Dance kind of effect that you have when you throw a consequently whatever came out was something that was inside me, that I'd had no idea about. Majors Some of my friends told me it reminded them very much of a pointing that I hove hanging in my bedroom that I did when I was a freshman. So it really must have something to do with what's in- side me if I've expressed it twice already. I think I'm beginning to rely on my inner self to create the dance. I was much more satisfied with this dance

QUADRILLE: Before we start talking, I'd like to get clearly defined in each segment. That was really "For me dance i·s some idea of what each of you did and how you got intriguing. ideas for your most important project. - MARY: Well, what started happening was I'd ex- theater, and that CONNIE: I didn't prepare any movements in ad- plor:l the concept of using one kind of space, and vance for my dancers. I would set one thing up for then I'd say, "Well, gee, but I haven't dealt with the seems to imply them and then pretend that I was coming into an. concept of that space over there... " One thought improvisational situation where I was just going to led to another, like stream of consciousness. more than one kind react to what I saw happening. I showed the piece /RENE: The incredible thing about your dance for to Judy Dunn when it was in a very elementary me was that it was such a long piece of work and of experience." stage because I couldn't tell what it looked like. She involved so many people and yet was still so in- said it was like little pieces of things, vignettes. teresting. How did you find your movements? From there I decided that if I wanted to make it a MARY: You know the first piece, where everyone than with others I've done, and much happier about continuous work I simply had to add more walks? I remembered one of Judy's classes last this way of working. vignettes. What happened was thct I began to feel term where she made us just walk, and I was EDAN: I didn't have any inspiration either, when I that a thread was going through the pieces, and fascinated by the stream of people walking. started mine. I decided to do a duet because I had that was how my piece developed. Another part started from the fact that I wanted to already done two trios. I hod a vague idea of MARY: Mine started out a lot like Connie's. Last try a dance with no arms. In another part I initially wanting to make it look like there were more than term there was a trend for really long dances - wanted three of us in a circle moving down across Irene Meltzer just two people dancing - of doing something that fifteen, twenty minutes long. But in workshops the space, but that didn't work; it had a tendency to pebble into a pot of water - a kind of rippling out had a sort of after-image, like stop-motion people would show little compositions and spread itself. But then that spreading took on a - so that the movement would shape the entire photography. But also, I had always wanted to try a somehow they seemed to me more effective. So I rhythmical shape which I used. And then there was karate dance. So we tried some karate for the first thought I'd do a two minute dance for my last term our group section, which was built around a game; space and echo throughout it. MICKIE: My piece didn't have any definite sources. I two rehearsals, and out of that I got some project, and then Jack (Moore) suggested that I try each of us made up a phrase to be taught to the started out last term building a tunnel to do a dance movement ideas. But in order t6 preserve the after- choreographing a whole bunch of them. I started others. One person would start his phrase and the in, but all I did last term was build the tunnel. Over image idea I kept lighting in mind the whole time, out with six different dances, but eventually they person next to him would do that phrase and add NRT I took out the tunnel every day and started having a light area and a dark area. What hap- started connecting through the elements of time his own, and the person next to him would do that dancing around and nothing happened so I just pened at the beginning was that one of the dancers and space I was dealing with. They all began to whole phrase and then add his own, and so on. took it down and threw it away. Then I was going to jumped into the light and quickly got back out into have a certain thread, or shape about them. Then I /RENE: When I started working on mine, I would go work on a trio, but over NRT I just couldn't get the the darkness while the next one came in, and then had to make the decision whether to show them to a studio and improvise, putting different music people together to work on it. I gave up and said, it got faster, so that it looked like there were more separately or all together, and I decided to show on. I'd come out after two hours with nothing. Then "Well, I have me here and I can always get myself than just the two of them. That was the only thing them all together. I attended a concert in New York and heard a piece that developed from the after-image idea, but I CONNIE: Your spaces and your shapes were of music that gave me a visual image which I to the studio, so I'll just do a solo. I decided to leave I Quadrille 4 Quadrille 5 think that dancers, especially, react that way to certain compositions. "By doing IRENE: And then some dances leave you with a certain image... something every MICKIE: Someone came up to me right after the concert and said, "Could you tell me about the term, you can't themes of your dance, and the other dances in the help hut try program?" And my first reaction was, "Oh, this is the kind of question they always tell us about and ,omething we're supposed to get really upset about and which we're not supposed to ask anyone else." So I said, different... you "First of all, you shouldn't think in terms of themes. You should just sit there and see... " begin to develop IRENE: For me, all this has to do with the fact that dance is theater, and theater seems to imply more your own style than one kind of experience. I'm beginning to see where you don't aim to do one kind of thing; you which you begin aim to fulfill it as a whole. to see toward the CONNIE: That's why it's good that the Dance Department is set up so that we are expected to do end - maybe in a project each semester and not just a final senior liked it and decided to keep it there. Then, just by Edon Schwarcz doing some karate exercises and falls I came up project. It gives you a great variety of experience to your senior project." with an ending. And by working with the material do a solo for yourself, to do a solo ·for somebody that was in those two movements, I ended up else, to design a group piece that yo!J're in, to with a thesis. Each year you write longer and such ..." instead, people try to tell you what is having something where one dancer formed a design a group piece that you're not in. longer papers until finally you're concentrating on actually happening, and you make the decision shape and pattern over the other, and the two of EDAN: By doing something every term, you can't one aspect of a major field and you write a thesis. yourself as to whether or not that's what you intend them became necessary to creating the whole help but try something different, you.can't help but In dance, we work on small studies in core, begin to to do. image. It turned out to be a very visual dance. progress. You iron out problems and gain a sense work on our own ideas, do term projects. I think MARY: Something I want to talk about is the kind of QUADRILLE: What's a "visual" dance as opposed to of audience reaction. Also, by doing three or four almost all the dancers continue working over the dancer Bennington puts out. Traditionally a dancer other kinds of dances? different projects you work with different coun- winter and summer and then hopefully, we attain goes to New York. Goes to studios. Tries to get into EDAN: That means that if you were to take a selors or tutors. And because you've got all these the kind of capability to produce something that's a dance company and gets a job to support himself picture at any one point in the dance, there would opportunities, you begin to develop your own style finished. through all of this. There seems to be a general be a composition for a picture, with light, dark, which you begin to see toward the end - maybe in MARY: I've found -especially this last term - that feeling that a lot of us don't want to go to New dynamics, and so on. Some people who had seen your senior project. dances are like babies. They have a way of York and do that kind of New York dance scene. A the dance said that afterwards they could still see /RENE: I think that must be similar to what happens becoming created by themselves rather than the lot of dancers feel that is not the kind of life they parts of it in their minds. That just seems to turn out way you've performed them. They take their own want to go into, although they want to dance with with the things I do - they're very clear-cut. course and it's very important that the good dancers. CONNIE: Another kind of dance might be one choreographer - or the artist or writer or director MICKIE: I would much prefer to stay in Vermont the where the element of movement comes out very - not resist the way the work of art wants to go. strongly - where you really feel the movement.. I CONNIE: It's consciousness without self- consciousness. "I've found that dances MICKIE: I think that's what I meant when I said my have a way of becoming piece wc.s found intuitively, because I didn't begin imposing learned or structural ideas on it until after created by themselves. I felt it had gone its own way. CONNIE: I think it's extremely important to be alive They take their own to respond to what goes down when you don't intend it to, and possibly to like it as part of the course and it's very dance. You have to learn to take it seriously. MICKIE: You have to know when a movement important that the belongs and when it doesn't; sometimes you're just holding on to it because it's something that you've choreographer not resist created. the way that the work CONNIE: What we've moved closer to at Ben- nington is a kind of critical aesthetic, where a of art wants to go." choreographer isn't told. "Well, it's good or it's Mory Klnol bad," or "It would be better if you did such and 6 Quadrille Quadrille 7 rest of my life. But I can't even get teaching jobs gung ho to New York and ... because I know they've got lots and lots of people until I've established a reputation. The only place MARY: .••join a company. who are really excited about dancing. One of the you can do that really is New York. MICKIE: That's an experience I'd like to have reasons they hired me this summer is because they QUADRILLE: Then you want to be a teacher rather sometime but it's probably not my ultimate goal - seem to get the same type of person there all the than a performer? to do something like spend the rest of my life in the time and want somebody with a different point of MICKIE: I'd like to be a teacher insofar as I have to Merce Cunningham Company. · view to come in and get them out of a rut. That's a support myself and I think teaching is fascinating CONNIE: The attitude at Bennington is to be not... great opportunity, especially for people who really and very challenging. I'd rather do that than work MICKIE: ...somebody else's pawn. want to do their own sort of things. in Bloomingdale's. I would like to perform too, but I CONNIE: To find a movement that suits you, that is MARY: I've applied to a graduate program in dance look at teaching as an integral part of my per- honest for you. That is valuable for you. therapy. As for working in New York or Boston or tormance. Teaching to me Is performing. It's also QUADRILLE: But isn't it hard to ~ind a place for wherever as a dancer, I think I would rather wait learning a craft a lot better, because you have to yourself? and see if other types of opportunities open up in explain it. When you have to explain to somebody CONNIE: That's why you make things. Jt's very hard other places. In the meantime I'm trying a different else what it is you're doing, you have to find out to find somebody else who not only makes things approach that interests me very much. I think what it is you're doing. I almost think it's necessary that are compatible with your particular aesthetic, there's a whole new thing happening in terms of to teach if you're going to be a performer. but with whom you enjoy working. movement as opposed to dance, and dance /RENE: I'm getting more and more interested in movement therapy is a part of that. It's a way of working with lots of people in different fields. Last summer I worked at . a summer camp and all the people on the staff were involved in their own "It's extremely artistic projects but also worked with each other, and it was incredibly exciting. I don't feel I can do important to he alive what I want to do in New York City. I just don't feel it can happen there. Originally, my feeling was, to respond to what "OK, I know I'll need to train somewhere," and in a goes down when you "You have to know don't intend it to; when a movement to learn to belongs and when it take it seriously." doesn't; sometimes file so that the people who were really making relating to human beings in terms of movement. things wouldn't have to be bogged down. you're just holding CONNIE: I spent last NRT at a small dance company EDAN: I'm interested in teaching. I think I'd enjoy in New York called Dance Theatre Workshop, and teaching at the university level rather than younger onto it because it's I'm going to work there next year. It's a cooperative kids. I'd like to be close enough to New York City something you've company - really like a family. Everyone cares so I could study there or perform there if I felt the about _everyone else's work and each can work urge, but far enough away so I wouldn't have to live created." there at his own level. And the people are either there. It's very hard to get jobs at the university different from what you'd usually find in New Vndc:, level now, so I think for next year I'll try to get a job certain way New York was a place to go to get that or they've already been through the st~com­ teaching an adult education class or an enrichment kind of training. I saw it as something that might go petitiveness thing. program class. I'm also interested in weaving and on for o couple of years and then I'd go someplace /RENE: l think this points out that Jt~ not impossible I'd like to study that. else and do what I want to do. But what has hap- to go to New York and fin.c:k:I way of living. There IRENE .Dancers have traditio,nally been very one- Mickle Gel/er pened is I've found people whom I might want to isn't just one wav tOAlo something; there are many dimensional people, especially dancers in work with in Boston. There's a center called Dance ways and vou--dO what is best for you at the time. specialized fields like ballet. I think what all of us CONNIE: What Mary said about the kind of dancer Circle and it's a smaller scene, less pressured than And .thcl may change after a while. are seeing is that we are people and we do more that Bennington is turning out has a lot to do with New York. MICKIE: The Dance Theatre Workshop job seems to than one thing. I think it would be good not only to where you want to be in terms of feeling that you QUADRILLE: What about some of the rest of you? be a good way to do your work and also be in other work in other people's dances, but to work in other really want to make your own stuff. I think at What are your plans for next year? people's work. It's not just running to New York to fields. I would eventually like to see some kind of Bennington there is a particular attitude toward MICKIE: I've got a job teaching at Cornell this join the best company you can get into. community of artists. Though "artists" is the wrong making things and the importance of... summer and I'm going to see if that can continue. CONNIE: Also, I'm really interested in dance word because - and Bennington has confirmed IDAN: ...making your own style and not imitating I'm one of three faculty members in their. summer management and public relations - aspects of this for me - everything can be done the way _somehody else's. dance program. Someday I guess I'd like to try the getting dance across to people, promoting other people do art. I think this happens here, and I wish CONNIE: ~-ight. Finding out what your particular New York thing because I want to see just how far I dancers, other choreographers, finding a place for that it could happen everywhere, that we could voice or movement is. can go in that sort of world. But I don't think it's my dance in the city. Over NRT I found it rewarding to stop talking about the Arts and the Sciences and MICKIE: I think fewer people here are ready to run ultimate goal. The Cornell situation interests me do things like answer the telephone and type and just have everybody do what they do.

8 Quadrille Quadrille 9 Barbara Morgan gave two talks at Bennington; one an informal, afternoon discussion with students who are especially interested in photography, and one an evening lecture BARBARA MORGAN: and presentation of slides which was held in the Carriage Barn and open to the com- munity. In this second lecture, she talked about the background and the process of INNER DIALOGUES WITH making MARTHA GRAHAM: SIXTEEN DANCES IN PHOTOGRAPHS, a book which many Bennington people know well. Before she left, she gave to the College a photograph of THE EXTERNAL WORLD Martha Graham in her dance "Letter to the World." It will eventually be displayed in the Barbara Morgan visited Bennington early in May. She had come from a house outside of Martha Hill Performance Workshop -a part of the planned Performing Arts Center. New York - a house filled with plants and books, with sunlight and large windows - a In addition to dance photography, Barbara Morgan has compiled a book on children house where some of her own finest photographs share space with rocks and shells entitled SUMMER'S CHILDREN: A PHOTOGRAPHIC CYCLE OF LIFE AT CAMP. Her picked up from her travels and with more photographs of and by people who have been photographs have been reproduced in numerous magazines and books. She has exhibited special to her. in the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institute, the George Eastman House in Below these rooms is a darkroom with stacks of photographs in various stages of "Rochester, and others, and she does a great deal of lecturing and writing in the field of processing and mounting. It is a room which, as one student who worked with Mrs. photography. She is currently involved in several book projects, among them a revision o'f Morgan over NRT said, evokes images of an alchemist's chamber. her book on Martha Graham. It remains only to be said that in a calm and natural way, Barbara Morgan loves to m-ake·th+Ags;-that the joy she finds not only in creating photographs but in what she understands of all the arts renders her a true artist and more. She is a delightful person to talk to. This QUADRILLE editor, who had the good fortune to give Mrs. Morgan a lift from Westchester to Bennington, missed three exits and took five-and-a-half hours to make a three-hour journey while engaged in a dialogue that initially had something to do with an attempt to define poetry.

QUESTION: Did you ever know Edward Weston? ANSWER: Sure, -I-know him. In fact, if it hadn't been for Edward Weston, I wouldn't be here. A long timv ago my husband kept saying, "Photography will be the great twentieth century art," and I kept saying, "Pooh, pooh." Well, one day, when I was the youngest member of the art faculty at UCLA and part of my job was to put up exhibits, the director of the department called me into the office and said, "Now Barbara, I want to explain a very odd thing. Photography is not considered an art generally, but I know that it has a great future. A remarkable man is coming here to have a photography exhibit. Will you · be gracious and help him?" Now in that day, which was about 1926, Weston looked like what would be considered a hippie today ...He came in with an open shirt, corduroy pants, short sleeves, and he was very clean and had sort of nice sloppy shoes on. Well, the minute he stepped in I liked him. Then he started putting those now-famous pictures around the walls, and I was just overwhelmed. Oh, and there was a very funny thing. You probably know the picture of the toilet seat? Well, I thought it was quite sculptural and it didn't bother me, but I thought maybe I should mention it to the director. So after we'd gotten things pretty well along, I slipped off and said, "There are some pretty good pictures out there, but I thought you might like to know there's one of a toilet." And she said, "Well, I think every artist has the right to express whatever is meaningful to him. However, I'll go out and take a look." She was sort of a diplomat but also a very honest person. She walked up and down the gallery, looking out of the corner of her eye, of course, at the toilet. And when she came back she said, "It's perfectly good, fine art." That was the first time it had ever been shown. When we were saying goodbye, I asked him, "Could you tell me what you're trying to do?" I blush to think that I ever had the gall to say that to someone, but he didn't take it amiss. He contemplated for a little and then he said what has stuck with me all the rest of my life. He said, "I'm trying to discover essence."

I 0 Quadrille Quadrille 11 Essence, yes, but even more than essence; I learned what I thought was impossible, So I'd say to Martha, "Why do you keep doing the same thing?" And she'd say, "Because that by looking at something and absorbing it emotionally, intellectually or whatever, everybody in the audience is on a different wave-length. Some people are tuned in that you could inwardly transform it. In other words, you have an object and you know it's already, some people aren't awakened to it. So you have to get them tuned in on the a shell or a person's body or even a toilet seat. You don't deny it, but you go beyond it. repetition. And hopefully, on the third time around, everybody's with you. The third time You get essence, you get symbolism, you get the eternal meaning, the meaning that goes around is the time when it's most eloquent, the most complete." beyond the individual reality. I would go through the whole dance and find that there were maybe eight or nine key moments, and that all the rest was just padding; that you could cut all the twenty minutes down to just a few gestures. (It was on that basis that I did the book on Martha Graham.) QUESTION: Do you think of your photomontage as another kind of reality? When I tried making films, I'd see the same thing done one time, two times, three times, ANSWER: That's a tough question. I have hundreds of ideas on that, but for the first round, and it just seemed repetitious. So I thought, "Why bother with all that connective tissue?" let me say that when I was a child my father taught me to imagine things. He started teaching me about atoms when I was really too yourig to know what they were all about. He'd say, "Maybe you won't understand what's going on right now, but just keep it in your mind," and then he'd explain how there were millions of atoms dancing around in everything, and how nothing was still. In other words, he taught me to always be having this inner dialogue with the external world. Or, he started me that way, and then I went on on my own. Now when I see you, I see you and something else. Everything challenges or awakens another reflex. I always have this sort of a multiple mind's eye activity going on. And then I've always been interested in poetry and metaphor, and I think of photomontage as visual metaphor. I've had lots of fights about this with dear friends who are photography people, who believe that the single image is sacred. And I say, "To me it's sacred to do what's in you." I find that what's in me is multiple imagery, that it is as real to me as the external world. So I feel the responsibility to do it.

QUESTION: In your photomontages do you feel that you're expressing the polarity you talked about earlier, or an intrinsic connection, or maybe both? ANSWER: It's very complex. First of all, I lived in a family where my parents were always theorizing. When I was a kid and would be put to bed early, my parents would read aloud from all kinds of philosophical books. I didn't know what it was about, but I was intrigued and I'd open the door a crack and listen. Gradually, I began to understand that they were just examining all kinds of things philosophically and aesthetically. Literature, Oriental philosophy, Darwin - all dissimilar things. My father always said, "Believe nothing. Examine everything." . I find that in working principle - I've never tried to set it down before, but maybe it's like this: I experience a kind of visual magnetic field. Sometimes a form will start to haunt me, something circular, something angular. I get to feeling kinetically in tune to it and then forms that cohere with it begin to come to me. Another thing I believe in (or it isn't believing, I just always work this way), I like to live with a thought until it really forces me to do something. I like to let this something go around in my brain until it becomes so vivid that I don't even have to think, I just go and do it.

Qt:tESTION: Do you see in black and white when you're photographing? ANSWER: That's a darn good question. I've never been asked that before. Yes, I do see a thing in black and white because I prevision it. I see it tone by tone before I even shoot. I'm vtilry aw~re of color but rhythmically I find more of a linear thrust and flow in black and white than color. C9lor is more of a field .

. QUESTION: Have you ever tried films? ANSWER: Yes, I have many friends who are film people and they used to badger me and I've always used the counterploy of nature and junk in the sense of metabolism. It's a say, "If you love motion so much, why don't you do the real thing on film?" But I found that sort of philosophical approach that always goes through my mind and very often my work I didn't want to do dance as record, that I didn't want to do anything on record. I wanted to -a sense of yin and yang, light and dark, love and hate - all these polarities. It is a kind do my own subjective response to a thing. of dynamics which I call "rhythmic vitality." I feel that this rhythmic vitality depends not When I studied Martha Graham and the other dancers, I would find that just as the only on polarities but also on the energy of life itself. I tune in on dance because to me it is music would repeat various motifs, so would the dancers make a gesture and then a the most eloquent form of the life force, whether it's a person or a snake·or a bird or similar gesture and then a similar gesture before going on to the next serial movement. whatever. It's the harmony of motion.

12 Quadrille Quadrille 13 I am also interested in the effects of lighting. When I was still a young teacher at UCLA I had a very pertinent experience to which I think I owe a great deal. Albert Barnes of the Barnes Foundation came out there to visit, and I was lntroduced to him. We clicked, and it Evening Lecture - Introduction by Ben Belitt happened that the next year my husband and I visited the Barnes Four.dation at his in- vitation. There we saw a fantastic collection of African art. We went wild over it and ...She is a photographer best known to me as a kind of spiritual chronicler of the pulse asked if we could photograph it, and he said, "Sure." So my husband and I would haul in ana the quintessence of Martha Graham during the years when dance in America was on our big cameras and lights and photograph those big African sculptures. M.Y husband the move and in the making. It seems to me now, in retrospect, that the move and the would do the camera work and I would do the illumination. Well, when I tried a light from make of American dance was a consequence, as well as a cause, of the art of Barbara a certain angle the shadows would come down and make the sculpture look demonic. Morgan. Then I'd move the light higher and that would calm it down, make it look serene and more She helped a whole generation of bystanders - myself included - to see as the normal. I got such a kick out of making these variations that I began to explore; how camera sees - critically and then beyond anything the camera can record. She taught us devilish can you make something, how handsome, or how relaxed?What does light really to see in minute particulars, at a chosen stance, in a special light, at a moment when the do? That was the beginning stage, working with those African figures where I could play speed and the risk of the dancer need a special kind of clairvoyance in order to become and experiment with different effects. Then when I started working with dancers I saw visible, to become true. that if I put light under a dancer, it would 'make the dancer lift; if I engulfed him in I think, too, Barbara Morgan has worth as a poet as well as an historian of dance, which darkness it would compress him, and so on. I began to discover how lighting can distort or she doesn't consider herself to be. Contemporaneously with her, poets were asking the change or amplify the form and its meaning. kind of questions for which her camera was finding answers. Yeats had asked, for example, "O bodies swaying to music. 0 brightening of glance /How shall we know I design my own books because I feel that the structuring, . the sequence, the jux- the dancer from the dance?" Eliot was preparing prophetic metaphysics for the stopped taposition of form and mood of the book, have to come from the person who makes the image of the camera, holding, past the blur of the motion picture of the moving figure, to pictures. Otherwise it doesn't fully flower. If you're a serious photographer and if you're some vision of its permanence. "At the still point," he said, "there the dance is." And it serious about its projection into book form, into published form, you should also learn seems to me these photographs by Barbara Morgan are a leggcy of such still points where about book design for your own security. all those who follow the art of Martha Graham know how her dance always was, and where it remains to be seen in the present again, merely in the act of looking. I think we know today too, that it took a mover and shaka"r to know a mover and shaker. She's with us tonight, with some of her pictures, to speak informally about pic- tures and dances she has helped make legendary as well as immortal.

ARCHIVAL PROCESSING: I attended a seminar in Washington at the Smithsonian in 1969 - the first seminar ever held on archival processing. Some of the top chemists in the world came and discussed aspects of the permanence of photography - paper, ...dance is inherent in everything. I see a snake going through the grass, a bird flying, storage, color as opposed to black and white, and so on. They all agreed that the most two automobiles colliding - I see it as dance. Dance is merely a form of the whole life permanent form by all means is black and white. However, the black and white process force in action. In a photomontage - a visual metaphor - the two elements, or com- must be done a certain way to insure permanence. You have to use 100 per cent rag for ponents, are partners in a kind of dance. mounting, special chemicals and apparatus. Negatives have to be stored in air tight My first deep experience with dance which really lead me to work with Martha was my containers rather than glassine envelopes. (The glue that is used in the glassine en- many summers of seeing the rituals of the Southwest Indians - corn dances, sun dances, velopes makes a line on the negatives after several years.) Archival processing takes at rain dances, and so on. And the relationship of the community and the dancing group least twice as long and is very costly, but once you know there's such a process, you can't inviting the union of the sun god and earth mother - inviting living forces together - do otherwise. I'd feel guilty if I did it less well than I know is possible. made dance for me not only a theatrical performance but a spiritual embrace of people and the world. I grew up in California, as Martha Graham did. We both experienced the same sort of light and space, and also contact with Oriental philosophy and Spanish tradition which were very much in the air. When I went to New York in 1930 and first saw Martha's dancing (I believe the first dance I saw was "Winged Mysteries" and then soon after

14 Quadrille Quodrille 15 "Frontiers," which is really going back in time). I immediately sensed her relation to the Indian, Southwest Spanish, and Oriental traditions. Originally I was a painter and I taught at UCLA. In the summers I went to the Southwest with my husband who was a young writer and who did photography to illustrate his ar- ticles. I would paint while he would photograph, and sometimes he got me to photograph also, to help him. I took thousands and thousands of photographs without ever going into anything with any real depth. I never dreamed I would touch a camera with my own creativity. later on, when we got to New York I saw Martho perform and experienced this marvelous thing about dance. Meanwhile I had had two children and was finding that I couldn't really be an adequate mother and give myself totally to painting at the same time. Then I found that I could photograph, doing all of my mental mind's eye visionary part regardless of whether I was nursing a baby or whatever, and doing the actual darkroom work in the evenings when the children were asleep. So that led me to switch. Soon after that very traumatic switch I met Martha. Intuitively, because we both tuned in on the same Oriental, Spanish, Indian traditions, I said, "I would like to do a book." And she said, "Fine." We set to work and it took five years. The first year was more or less experimental on my part because number one, I did not want to take performance pictures. I wanted to find not only what was there to the whole audience, but I wanted to find what I retained out of the experience, what haunted. I would see several performances of the same dance and discuss it philosophically with Martha, to see what her intention was. I would also drop around and see all the kids doing their exercises in rehearsals. I wanted to see the bad part, the things that were not adequate, so I could then see what the refinement was or the final perfection, in Martha's terms. And then I would let perhaps a month go by and do nothing but let it all percolate. The gestures or moments that really hovered in my mind became the thing that I was previsioning, the thing that I eventually set up and photographed. I call this whole process the extinction method. A second thing I did that first year was to experiment very intricately with light to see how I could intensify or essentualize a gesture to bring out the fullest force and delicacy and at the same time be faithful to the dance. That is, not to use the dance just to demonstrate photography, but to try to find its fullest meaning. In all of this, we used a process which comes from the Chinese theatre tradition. It's the process of the actor or dancer becoming a character; changing costume, using incense to stimulate certain sensory reactions, hearing music to get a sense of rhythm. No Chinese doncer can go onstage until he has practically become the character. I also had observed this in our Southwest Indians. My husband and I had a dear friend who was actually a descendant of a Spanish conquistador, and through him we were given opportunities to see rituals in the Suny Pueblo which we could never have gotten to see otherwise. One day while we were watching preparations for a Suny ritual, a young Suny boy who had studied English in school looked shyly up at me and said, "See that ''Letter to the World" "Kick" man?" He was pointing to the last one getting into line, dressed in costume. "He's my doddy but he's not my daddy now. He's a gad. But I can tell he's my daddy because see how he limps? That's because once he broke his leg. I know he's my daddy. He's really a god." And it's the same thing in many cultures - this transition. So now Martha and I would be preparing to shoot. I would be setting up lights and getting the camera ready, and she'd be getting her make-up on. Soon she'd come drifting in. I'd say, "Well, any time." And she'd say, "Almost ready." And then we wouldn't say anything. She'd squat on the floor and I'd squat on the floor, we wouldn't look at each other. She was turning into whatever it was, and I had to turn into it, too - although I still had to remember how to run the camera! When the moment came, she'd look up. And then she'd start, and I'd start.

Quadrille I 7

16 Quadrille AT MID-THESIS " ...now that I am confronted with the real problem of trying to understandsomething, Comments by Chris Stahl my preoccupations with style have gone out the window."

Christina Stead. I decided to do essays chiefly you've got to throw it out... " And I was getting more because I wasafraid to write a big long thesis. I had and more panicky as time went on, because I had never written anything that long before. What wanted to come back with a first draft. has happened is I'm writing something that long Finally, after an especially bad point, I said, "This anyway and have discarded the Stead novel has gone far enough, I can't put up with this ariy altogether. more." So I started getting wrecked every night and I suppose I had some vaguely personal reasons then I'd go to the library and I'd sit down and I'd for choosing this thesis topic, which various people write, and if things were bad I'd say, "that's all have tried to psychoanalyze. I'm dealing with a right, I'll go back and fix them later," and I was familial topic; I'm writing about the family as the much more willing to accept my own work. That's propagator of a certain belief system. Which how I managed to get the first ten pages out. The sounds pretty jargony. Which I can't get away with first couple of pages were really bad, but then I saying in my thesis. But what it comes down to is, got into the t~ing itself. And once I had gotten there is a character in the book who can say, into the mood of accepting what I wrote, I had "Essentially I am a Buddenbrook" or" I am a Sar- crossed the biggest barrier. toris." "A Buddenbrook does this and that." "A i ~ame back from NRT with my ten pages and I Sartoris does this and that." This happens to be true was proud of having written that much of my first in my own family, to a certain extent. People say, draft. On the other hand, I was terrified, because I "Stahl is hardheaded" or something like that. was supposed to have come back with a whole first Which doesn't really have that much to do with my draft. And besides that, the bus company had just thesis. It just means that I am acquainted with the lost all my books and notes. (I had just happened to concept of the family as a unit of definition. have the draft with me, and I got everything else AlsoLhad been thinking about the family novel back three weeks later.) I gave Alan the ten pages and how it contrasts to the picaresque nov.el, in and he was pleased to see them. whichyou have a hero who's just an individual - Alan has been a very good thesis tutor because, who's sort of away from everything. first of all, he's always surprised when I give him When I went to put all this down on paper I had a work even though I've promised him more. lot of trouble. Even now, when it comes to the point Secondly, he's not over critical. At that point, it of trying to pick a title for my thesis, my mind would have been very hard to have a tutor who boggles. And still when people ask me what would have said, "These ten pages are terrible, go my thesis is about I revert to my plan and back and rewrite them." What he did say was, "The say ''TheBourgeoisFamilyTieasaliteraryThemeand- first two pages are terrible but the rest is all right. StrudureinCertainNovels." (Which novels varied You can go back and rewrite them when you're The original plan I submitted my Junior year was interested in the historical side of it and try to from week to week.) Because it sounds very solid, finished." something like, ''I'm going to do a survey of the way corral me into doing it from that standpoint, and I'd and in a sense it is. Basically, I'm writing about the After I got back to school.I found that I'd work the bourgeois family tie is treated in European be too weak-kneed to get myself out. family as a literary theme, and that essentially about a week trying to get everything together, novels from 1900 on, taking BUDDENBROOKS: So I really went hunting. There was a new lit means the breakdown of the family. Mann and and then in a couple of nights I'd write another DECLINE OF THE FAMILY by Thomas Mann as a faculty member, Alan Cheuse, and I went in and Faulkner use the family to demonstrate certain ten or twenty pages. At mid-term I had about prototype." Well, that's absurd. said, ''I'm coming in to interview you. I'm looking relationships between characters. What becomes seventy pages and had finished the BUDDEN- First of all, I'm a lit major and not well enough for someone who won't get heavy on the historical important is not what the family stands for as a BROOKS. I had the feeling all the time that I was grounded in history. Not only is that a history topic, side." I was very authoritarian at the beginning. It family, but how the family contributes to the forced to accept what I was writing, because that it's a Ph.D. thesis topic. It would involve going to was difficult because I didn't know quite what I structure of the book. was the only way I could write it. the present, examining how the family has wanted, but I-Ult that Alan might be a pretty I tried to start writing over NRT and I had a I was doing it by characters. Mann is a very declined and concentrating especially on the era malleable person to work with. As it turned out, he terrible time. I felt I had something important to say . easy person to write about because his narrative is after WW I. really gave me a lot of direction. and that I wasn't saying it. I think it had something arranged chronologically; and each character can And I didn't want to write a historical survey; I What I eventually decided to do was a series of to do with being very choosy. I'd sit down dutifully be discussed in terms of successive sections of the wanted to write a close textual analysis paper. I essays dealing with BUDDENBROOKS and two night after night al'1d I'd write various things and book. Secondly, whatever you look for in Mann had to choose a thesis tutor, and I was afraid that other novels which Alan recommended which were then I'd say, "Well, that isn't very elegant. It isn't up you're going to find. If you have the vaguest inkling the people I was going to talk to who are really not by Europeans - SARTORIS by William Faulkner to what you're saying. You can't write that poorly, of something, it's there, and it's there repeatedly. acquainted with the European novel would be more and a novel by an Australian novelist named 18 Quadrille Quadrille 19 It's a pleasure to write about BUDDENBROOKS for happen and you slip out of it. You have to give that reason. yourself the opportunity. On the other hand, I wasn't content with what I When I started on the Faulkner essay I felt very was turning out. I felt as though it could be said a disoriented. SARTORIS is one of Faulkner's early lot better after I'd written it, and I was very eager works and not so accomplished as what he did "WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER BE, to revise. As it turns out, I'm not going to have time later. And it certainly doesn't resemble BUD- to revise as drastically as I'd like to. DENBROOKS in terms of chronological What I kept thinking was, ''I'm forced to set down arrangement. BUDDENBROOKS had become a very A DOCTOR OR A NURSE?" my · thoughts in the most immediate fashion familiar text, and suddenly here I was confronted because I don't have time to go back." I've never with an alien object. Once again I felt as though I hod time to revise a paper, really. I kept thinking of hod to start writing right away in order to get it out, little things I'd like to do; for instance, near the end so that I could go back and revise. By Pat Barr Webster of the book there's a scene in which the youngest I started out doing something I never do - I Buddenbrook plays a musical improvisation. It's an argued with the critics. I did this because I really imaginary scene, an ecstatic thing, and it goes on didn't know the book and the critics were easy to for three or four pages. This chapter is really a argue with. I wrote thirty pages and they were In the beginning, I guess that what I really setting up an experiment based on the fact that recapitulation of the novel as a family history, and terrible. I threw them out and have started over wonted to know was what my fellow females women rely on their men folk to assign them a it can be related line by line to things that have again. And now that that h_as happened-now that I thought of themselves. Since I am wrapped up in "status" position and thereby to define their roles. I been appearing all through the book. I resented am confronted with a real problem of trying to the Women's Movement anyway (in spirit rather remembered that during my high school years, I having to write all that out and say, "Well, this understand something - my preoccupations with ' than as a meeting-goer), I was curious to see if was very aware of status groups among my friends, means this and that means that." If I'd had my style have gone out the window. It's no longer women think as little of their role as the current and- that in order to belong to the ecol ones we had choice, and if I had had the time to think about how important how I'm saying something, what's im- books say they ought to. From my observations of to at least have a boyfriend. So I thought of ap- I was doing it, I think I would have tried to put down portant is what I'm saying. And I'm finding that college-age women, myself included, I proaching the issue of female stereotypes through the text of this imaginary musical improvisation on once you start having your own ideas and relying hypothesized that there is a great deal of militancy a study of the status systems of high school kids. I one side of the page, and then juxtapose quotes on them, your language clears up. in young women against stereotyped roles for felt it might show the degree to which women at from the rest of the book. Because it's not In terms of my thesis though, I'm still an Idiot. I'm women. that age are, or are not, planning their lives around necessary to explain everything. I feel like I'm doing analysis-of-th•text type of routine; I'm not Originally I wanted to determine whether or not men. really nursing my reader along. I don't think Alan odding much of my own thinking. Which I think 11 this militancy exists in older women, perhaps in a I tried a pretest, and it didn't work. When I talked would have been opposed to my doing it the other all right at this point. If I were to continue with latent form. I also wanted to see if the feelings in us to ten kids, most of them concluded that there was way If I had done It well, but I needed time. criticism I would start looking farther. college-age women against female stereotypes no status system: "Popularity isn't important here." Whenever you pull a gimmick like that you really This whole idea of a the1l1 Involves such a might be justified by the· fact that many older We are all very independent and we don't think in have to think It through, otherwlH It turns out just monumentally new task. You've never written women are unhappy with themselves. terms of boys and girls." But when I observed them to be a gimmick. It was at this point that It hit me anything of this length before or done this much of During first semester I did a great deal of in- around the school, in the lunch room, in talk halls that I hadn't bHn able to revise, and that I would your own work. I think there 11 one really unfair teresting reading about and by women. As the first (study halls where they didn't have to study). 11 have like to have experimented a little more with thing about the thHll and that 11 you have to have term progressed, however, a lot of my friends who could see definite groups and I knew that some crltlcal 1tyle. written It to graduate. Someone hands you a know more than I do about psychological testing criteria had been used in establishing those groups. One of the few directive• Alan did give me wa1 completely new experience and 1ay1, "All right, • that he didn't want to hear about my "trauma1." He 1uccHd, or the whole four years 11 1hot." knew that I wa1 going to have them and he wasn't For the first time, you fHI really re1pon1lble for particularly lntere1ted In them. He told me not to getting the whole thing, for understanding look upon them as an excuse; that I should sit down everything. In BUDDENBROOKS I choH a very "One begins this sort of project with every night and just allot a certain amount of time central theme which ran through the 600 page text, to writing and not say, "I'm In a bad mood tonight, I and I tried to get In as much as I could of won't be able to write anything." It's true that everything. It turned out to be huge. But that's a the idea that impressions are enough." you're In a bad mood tonight, and won't be able to great experience - to fHI that you really un· write anything and those two hours are going to be derstand something. That was the first time I'd ever really frustrating. But sometimes that doesn't done something quite 10 comprehensive. suggested that it would be difficult for me to find One out of the ten kids had described an elaborate , cooperative adult subjects. And also, that if I used status system, but what she observed was different an open-ended approach and asked questions such from what I observed. So I decided to try a new as, "What do you think of being a woman?" "What tack; to ask the same ten kids to keep diaries for should a woman be?" "How do you feel about your ten days, and to record their comings and goings, NOTE: In Its finished form, this thesis advanced the kids?" that I would end up with very biased with whom they did various things, when they did hypothesis that In order to depict the decline of the statistics. their school work, and what they did for recreation. modern family, Faulkner and Mann borrow devlcH · Then I thought that another way of dealing with From these I thought I would be able to get enough from class/cal tragedy. It's tltle: "Unhappy Famllles: the question of female stereotypes might involve questions worked out for a comprehensive Tragic clements In the Modern Novel." Quadrille 21 20 Quadrille questionnaire. Eight kids said they would send pressions) and the data fit in. I understand that POEMS FROM "THE ICE INSPECTOR" diaries; only three did, and then it was the end of good psychologists can fit them together so that term. they complement each other, but I don't consider Over NRT I did some more reading. I found one myself a. good psychologist. A Creative Thesis by Denise Provost study which dealt with the stereotypes for men and I guess the funniest question I asked was, "What women and how they contrasted with the subjects' would you want to be, a doctor or a nurse?" For the .real self-images. The experimenters had gotten the most part the kids just looked at me in utter stereotype information by asking college kids to disbelief. To them it was very simple; being a nurse name what they felt to be the differences between is girls' stuff and being a doctor is boys' stuff. That men and women, and then all items mentioned five alone answers the question of whether kids are GETTING TO NOWHERE times or more had been put on a scaled aware of stereotypes. Yes!! questionnaire. There were many children whose imaginations The quilt-squares map That started me wondering; how did these were a delight. I couldn't get many straight an- a pleasant land. I stereotype images develop? Is there a time when swers from them, and that can be sort of a pleasure study its topography if you are asking the same question thirty-five young kids are not yet aware of them? I contemplate its I came back to school second term intending to times. One of the little boys just talked in harmony, though talk to thirty subjects in each of six grades ranging fragments and seemed as though he wanted to get from kindergarten to high school, and to ask them up and fly away. He kept forgetting what I had just half-awake. Elsewhere questions like: "What are all the differences you asked. His teacher, needless to , say, is worried hear the cat complain can think of between men and women?" "Describe about him, but for me he was a refreshing person the stairway squeak your ideal self ... " Hopefully, I would be able to to talk to. instrusions. The pieces determine from the responses at what age kids The next step was writing and evaluating. I was here that do not fit begin to think in terms of sex differences. But my lucky in the sense that I had too few subjects to into a piecemeal, two faculty advisors Sharon (Shepela) and Marilyn have to evaluate them statistically, which I hadn't patchwork plan. I (Wemander) said "Wait a minute! An admirable wanted to do anyway. I guess it is at that junction pretend not to hear you idea, but ... " The experiment would have involved that the future psychologists are separated from repeat the disturbances, more data than I could analyze in the fourteen the rest. complications that would weeks I had left. As far as it goes, the study does clearly show that leave me incomplete. I have mapped the world. "I couldn't get many straight answers ... Only so far do I extend. See this abundant plain and that can be sort of a pleasure if you're abruptly end. asking the same question thirty-five times."

QUESTION 9-7-68

Finally, I decided to limit my subjects to younger five-year-old children are aware of differences in kids and to limit myself to determining how sex role stereotypes. Certain influences may and why have you caused them sterotypes influence five-year-olds and whether or change the nature of that awareness; however, to be born, these cats? not they are aware of the sterotypes by the time and that has yet to be investigated. five of them, all mucous they are five. I got a questionnaire together and it From doing this study I gained a sense of how to mewing and milky wet. worked. More time, of course, would have made it collect data which tells you somethin!;1. and then of Someone will wrap them in newspapers better. how to convey it through logic and organization so like newly caught fish I had a total of thirty-five subjects, which was not that it tells that something to someone else. someone will forget them enough for a truly valid study. At that point, time However I find that I am not attracted to the in a shoebox on the seat of a car was the governing factor. I feel that from the thirty- procedures involved in a full psychological study. someone will take them together and forget. five subjects I talked to, I got as much information Although I love numbers and almost majored in and their mother will swell as she has bled as I could have gotten had I talked to sixty, but my math, I do not particularly like relating math to again, and again will drop more kittens study would not be considered "statistically sound" interpersonal situations in psychology. just as she scatters hairs by psychologists for anything but a BA thesis. It was fun talking to the kids. I was at first ap- I did get a sense of how one should go about fur on the fat furniture palled that these children were subjects I had to conducting research, which will come in handy if I datify. One begins this sort of project with the idea ever do an experiment by myself. But I am still that impressions are enough. I am still not clear as I confused about the value of this project. Perhaps ought to be as to where the creative sense (im- it's because I've only just finished it. Quadrille 23 22 Quadrille ------~2 ~ 1 an Ht mm m eca 01 m m m 31~ no1__,c_======I ~======-==--===--==--~~ I PART OF A LIFE Too early for morning a poem creaks and is forgotten suffocated in sleep. Time stills, the words drift to the bottom the afternoons wash through the window, and sweep out splashing light into the soundless interior of this room. We come conscious slowly knowing what will come. Now ideas grow edges slowly, and try again. The sky is like paper the window cuts it neatly into smooth grey squares.

BAT

THE DEATH OF THE LIFE OF THE MIND You had always been part The landscape in these parts partakes of the imaginary dangers of an exquisite monotony of a darkened house. an infancy of perfection. Green Switching on the kitchen that grows to perish in lavish throes light that night was to snows that bury the housebound terrify and blind you - bu-rghe same as mice or rabbits. I saw the soar and Thoughts float the silence like ships. soundless flutter, looping The days are neither identical nor frantic fight against the do they bear distinguishing features. blank and dazzling ceiling. I am tempted to regale the merits I could not move, so afraid of a yet immaculate country, invite that in some confusion we alt to partake of its pristine poverty would collide. How foolish a word-dearth, nature-rapture that to doubt your perfect senses. becomes· routine. To love the country - You sailed from the treacherous what better solace to the wound of -living? room towards safety, drifting A little harmless introspection out the door, dissolving provides a weapon against the world. into lightlessness. Do not leave your cities for the luxury of this privacy. The unblemished stillness stifles us here. To know yourself so well is to become unborn again, to diminish among other nascent forms. Kathleen Sllllngs A paltry life to lead. Even now the wind unhinges lifeless leaves.

24 Quadrille Quadrille 25 THE PATH OF ONE "Certainly, my route "BENNINGTON-TRAINED SPIRIT" was muddy, humbled, circuitous,, and only occasionally By Wilhelmina Eaton '50 courageous."

To any who knows Bennington College, its which have changed the direction of my energies. ment assigned some clients to me and I was off and roles which they must take before tney deserve to students, and its graduates, it may seem in- The first yearofter I graduated I decided to attend running. I was particularly interested in working be respected as business executives. consistent that I, a former art major, am now a secretarial school to acquire skills which would be with widows and other individuals whose modest- Certainly, my own route was muddy, bumbled, manager of personal financial assets and an in- helpful in securing a job. Over a period of about sized portfolios were being discduraged from the circuitous, and only occasionally courageous. There vestment counselor. When I was at college, not all thirteen years I held a series of secretarial counselling services of Wall Street banks and were personal and social hang-ups to overcome of us knew in what directions we would develop positions in a publishing company, a brokerage houses. ("Finance is a man's role," etc.) But my Benning- after we left that special environment! Some of us photography company, the Boston Junior league ton-trained spirit finally won out over the ob- After a few years in my advisory position at the have explored and settled upon seemingly headquarters, some temporary positions in a bank, structions. investment banking firm, I decided to get some unrelated directions and pursuits. insurance company, and coal company, and finally Twenty-one years ago I never would have experience at a bank where I did not carry with me But are they really so unrelated? I think not. At in a law firm. For a short interim during this period I tolerated the idea that I, with a strong love of my long history as a secretary. For about two-and- the time I graduated from college I felt, like Riva even taught ballroom dancing. music, art, dtmce, and drama, would find self- a-half years I was an investment counsellor in the Poor (whose article appeared in QUADRILLE Vol. 5, expression through a business career. I am now About seven years after graduation from Ben- Personal Investment Department at Brown No. 2), that Bennington had been a disappointment enjoying the discovery of all sorts of energies and nington -Iliad moved from Boston to New York City . . Brothers, Harriman & Co., and I continued to be because I had come away with "no package of facts skills I never attempted to exercise previously. A job as secretary to the partner in charge of the concerned with the plight of holders of average-or- and formulas, no job-oriented skill." I was not Now, as president of my own corporation, I am also Research Department at White, Weld & Co. moderate-sized portfolios. certain what I might DO with my future and I had its secretary, salesperson, public relations officer, eventually led me into the Wall Street environm~nt. hopes the college would provide the answer. I Eventually I decided to serve individuals as an research analyst, investment advisor, office Much to my delight, I found I enjoyed being on "The considered becoming an art teacher, but I lacked independent, personal financial manager and also manager, etc. And I love it! I can't say clearly or Street" - the variety of projects, the changing the confidence, techniques, and inspiration to elected to broaden the scope of my role to include strongly enough how intellectually and spiritually moods of the market, the continual search into pursue this career and to continue learning through investment counselling in relation to total financial rewarding it is to experience risk-taking, attempted projections of industrial earnings, and teaching. However, unlike Mrs. Poor, I definitely asset planning. This is related to estate planning responsibility, and decisiveness in business. And the field of economy itself. It was at that point that I did not think my Bennington years "had been a and the financial role which is ordinarily assumed while I did not leave the college with the self- realized I wanted to upgrade my position. A desire waste." by the Head of Household. less than a year ago, I confidence I required or the proper self-image to to relate the needs of individuals to the challenges While I was at Bennington I majored, specifically, started my own firm. pursue a career, I nevertheless credit my Ben- of the securities markets drew me into the in- -ilLsculpture. This was a discipline I seemed to feel There is no question in my mind that the current nington experiences for opening up paths and vestment advisory or counselling department. and understand best at that time - a creative art Women's Liberation movement has aided me in my establishing in me a sound basis for creative - b1,1t something which exposed me to other During my early years as a secretary in the decision to enter my own financially oriented courage. As I look back over these years, most of relationships and which I could apply to other fields brokerage business I had attended evening courses business. Although Wall Street has been slow to let what seemed so unrelated has tied together in the women hold executive positions at salaries equal of study. Also at Bennington, I heard and met at the New York Institute of Finance. later, soon outlet I have found for pursuing more universal persons who challenged some of my complacent after I joined the Investment Advisory Department to their male counterparts, I point out that any Old objectives. attitudes. Ideas started to formulate. The principle at White, Weld & Co., I reviewed and studied on my Cl11h or Established Institution is- reluctant to Ideally, the process of stretching one's whole self that learning is a continual, life-long process is a own in preparation for the Registered Represen- change its membership. And not as many women to the utmost never stops. Some healthy seeds funrfamental Bennington concept which I believe is tative examinations, which, much to my relief, I have been as diligent, ambitious, and professional were planted at Bennington and, as I and many avert bit as cogent and pertinent today as it was possed on the first attempt! in their work in the past as their male counterparts. others have found, it is up to the individual to (dare I say it?) a quarter ~fa century ago. Generally, women have hesitated to take tbe risks, nurture the plants. Many things have happened over the years The partner in charge of the Advisory Depart- financial responsibilities, and creative leadership Wilhelmina M. Eaton

26 Quadrille Quadrille 27 "I think Bennington is good "I worked absolutely on my own all for women. I can't say yet term, and then to have someone look how it is good for their art, at it and say, 'This is good, this isn't,' but women are encouraged etc. seemed unsettling and arbitrary." here to be artists."

"You have to be your own feedback. After four years, I'm ready to do that."

"I'm learning to put what I "I used to think I could be a want in there - that it's not "The good thing about the waitress four days a week going to grow there by itself." show was getting responses from people outside of the art and devote the rest of my division, finding out how time to art. But now I know I other people who are not want to do more with art, artists see our work. They're possibly In teaching or interested in the end image, restoration. I'm not talking not how you've made it. They about negating my . Ideas see an image and not the about art, but there Is a technical process." question of lifestyle. Where do you get the money for that 'pure life?' "

"Now I am more apt to accept failures in my work. Because I am working on my own or will be, I have to be my own critic and trust my criticism."

"The show is a first ta~te of what you may be doing for the rest of your life." Some statements by art majors

28 Quadrille Quadrille 29 CIRKOOKOOSS

A Project by Caroline Simonds and Deborah Borda

EDITOR'S NOTE: This Interview deals with a four-part concert which was presented June 3rd by Music-Drama major Caroline Simonds and Music ma/or Deborah Borda. It was labeled on the mimeographed from Slmond's score for CIRKOOKOOSS program as a "Senior Concert" - which turned out to be an anachronism, not to mention a gaping QUADRILLE: How did you put the entire program sundae with me and I asked them what they had understatement, of what actually took place. together? It was so many different things. Did you learned at clown school. The concert began on the side lawn of Jennings have one idea behind it? with HUNGERFIELD, a dance composed and per- QUADRILLE: We didn't know there was such a thing formed by Caroline Simonds and Robert Kovich. CAROLINE: We just put together pieces we had as clown school. Afterwards the. spectators and performers moved ready. to the Carriage Barn, where Deborah Borda, ac- CAROLINE: The old system_of clowns has run out. companied by members of the Music Division, DEBORAH: We had other pieces, but we had It's not an enlarged system of apprenticeship played the Telemann Viola Concerto In G Ma/or to performed most of them several times and we an~more. Bill Ballantine, main clown at Barnum & an enthusiastic.and what was becoming a packed decided to do a whole new program. The two Bailey, has started a school for clowns. It's in house. This was followed by STRINGS & B_ONES or pieces that Caroline wrote (STRINGS & BONES and Venice, Florida. THE JEWELED DRAGON HUNT - composed by CIRKOOKOOSS) were completely ·her own Caroline and conducted by Deborah - a com- creations. I had already given my Senior concert so QUADRILLE: What did you talk about? bination of music and mime which Involved a I just had to decide what I would do for my half of Wizard Conductor, a Dragon as trombone player, the program. We were thinking of doing some CAROLINE: Timing. A sense of timing for clowns. and a Giant, Goblin, Dwarf, and Fairy as vlollnlsts. really far-out viola piece--o modern piece-but I An intermission was held, and then came finally ended up doing the Telemann, which is QUADRILLE: How much of the piece could you CIRKOOKOOSS with a "Cast of Thousands": really baroque music. actually rehearse? Musicians, Vendors, Clowns, an Acrobat, Juggler, Dancing Girl, and a D.O.M. (portrayed by Paul CAROLINE: Ancient Circus!! CAROLINE: The whole thing. Every word, every Gray). The backdrop consisted of several large action. It was all notated on the score. The pqintfng_. which happened to be In the vicinity as QUADRILLE: (To Caroline) Did you consider the last characters were free enough so that they could be part of the Senior.Art Show. The audience had been part, CIRKOOKOOSS, your senior project? improvised upon, but I talked to each individual encouraged~ come in circus attire and it was often person for at least an hour about his role. At the difficult to distinguish between the performers and CAROLINE: No, it was just a project. I've been first clown rehearsal. everyone tried to act funny. the spectators. The night was warm; the Carriage working on it all year. In the first place, I didn't We were pathetic. We wouldn't have been funny at Barn was, and smelled, crowded. Bodies were want to make a big deal out of doing a project. all to a spectator, we were funny only to each ~prowled on the floor, legs dangled from the Also, I've wanted for a long time to do a study on other. Gradually we got less and less funny to balconies, Vendors roamed about tossing sand- circuses. I've always liked circuses. ourselves and worked into our characters. We wiches and bags of - Granola? (difficult to tell For the last few years I've read a lot about the stopped being spectators to ourselves. from our .. wedge of the balcony) - toward out- history of clowns, the history of harlequin art, ... I had to create a clown character for each stretched hands. The scene had overtones of Dickens' books on Grimaldi, art books. I conceived person. Each person had to master the inside of his Purgatory, an orgy, or a fancy-dress sit-in, (my circus) bit by bit, doing research the whole part, the guts of the character. My clown "Zeep" depending on one's mood. time. I wrote the last part first and then I got lots was the one who runs everything, but does it all What it actually was was a circus. A lengthy more ideas. Even when I was almost finished I just wrong. Tries real, real hard. Beth's clown ("High piece of mime and fantasy that moved constantly kept reading, until not only was my imagination Fits") was the kind who listens when the guy on the and somehow evoked the laughter and suspense involved, but 200 other people's as well ... I'd keep radio in the morning says GOOD MORNING, as and glitter that a well-equipped circus usually going back to Picasso paintings. I took in a lot of though it's tust for her. "Twinkle" was everybody's evokes. At the end, QUADRILLE left scratching its images; I took the main image for the whole piece friend, everybody's sunshine. "Weenie" was the head, chortllng, breathing deeply of the fresh air, from a Chagall painting of a trapeze lady. I also did baby clown, my assistant, and she's kind of a and resolving to corner Deborah and Caroline at research on costumes, commedia dell'arte ... In goody-goody. The vulnerable goody-goody. some point, to find out just what they had had in November I went to a circus and went back to talk "Boobalinka" was a kind of reflective, imitative Caroline Simonds mind when they made their "concert." to the clowns. I asked them to come out and have a soul. One that mimics everybody. She's a little bit of

30 Quadrille Quadrille 31 a troublemaker as well. .. It all started with the idea moments for me to cut people off and go on to the every silence had to be textured by what was as though we're in a separate world, which is bad, that the whole evening was a celebration of next thing during the show. That was the main happening under it. We had to f ind a way for the in a way. I don't think I could have stayed at "Graciell a' s" birthday. thing. With Caroline, I fee.I a lot of times that her musicians to technically sit still so they wouldn't Bennington and graduated if I'd been, say, a psych ideas are so far out that I'm just trying to put them distract the audience to go into a mime, so that the major. Maybe they're the ones who toke them- DEBORAH: "Madame Graciella" is the trapeze in human terms. Specifically, I had ·the job of show wouldn't fall apart. There had to be a tension selves too seriously. artist. You never see her - she's up in the sky - making sure that everything came together at the underneath the solos. but everybody's reacting to her all through the right time. CAROLINE: Well, we took this seriously, very show. She's like the soul and spirit. QUADRILLE: Was your "circus" designed to be done seriously ... We worked with a spirit of- love? CAROLINE: I couldn't have conducted, physically. I only once? CAROLINE: All the musicians were told that they can't keep my arms in control. My body is con- DEBORAH: We worked very hard to get it together. were circus musicians, that they had been doing trolled out of control. I was standing in front of the DEBORAH: We could to it again and it would But a concert is not a matter of life or death. It's a this every night for years. But that tonight was mirror in my room one day to practice conducting probably be different. matter of enjoyment or not enjoyment. special because it was Madame Graciella's birth- and I started doing mime. I started transforming my day. And I imagine I told three-fourths of ·them conducting into knitting, playing cymbals, eating QUADRILLE: Would you want to do it again, to see CAROLINE: Everything that went wrong was right that they were madly in love with Graciella, too ... spaghetti, and I ended up with what was the center what happened? as far as the performance was concerned. If People had all sorts of connections. I had a few of the clown show. It grew out of what happened in someone made a "mistake" they had to incorporate sons and daughters running around, and Graciella my room one day ... DEBORAH AND CAROLINE: NO! it as part of the piece right away. So that it wasn't a had, I think, an illegitimate daughter. And one of mistake. DEBORAH: She's been setting this thing up since DEBORAH: But really, where else could you stage before NRT. I remember the first time she showed this but the Carriage Barn? At not too many other DEBORAH: But it wasn't improvisation. If you can't me the score, I did not see how we could do it. I just places would you get an audience like the Ben- really enjoy performing and give that joy in your didn't think it could all be put together. nington audience. Actually, I think they laughed too performance, then the audience is never going to easily. receive it. That's the most important thing to CAROLINE: I think part of the success of the piece, maintain; vitality, an inner excitement in your in terms of performance, was the right people were CAROLINE: They're hyper-responsjve. performance. If you do that you can miss a run, you can play a little out of tune sometimes, and it's OK. DEBORAH: But they're receptive. They'll follow up That's what I think we kept in the whole concert. I on anything. missed two notes in the last movement of the Telemann and suddenly I thought, "I'm going to · QUADRILLE: Do you think that one of the reasons fall apart. Now how can I get it all finished?" But people laugh so much is that there isn't much then I thought, "This is ridiculous. I've been humor coming out in productions at Bennington? enjoying myself up to now. Why let two missing notes matter?" · DEBORAH: NO. I think people laugh too much at concerts here because in the Music Department, at CAROLINE: Over NRT I did a theater piece on tour. least, we sometimes joke around too much. I feel daing the right things. For example, I couldn't have Part of it involved an entire silent part and no one conducted it at all. hod ever made a sound any time I had performed it. When I ployed it in Montreal. I walked on and all DEBORAH: We work well together. And the show the male chauvinists in the audience started was just something we wanted to do. It had very whistling and cheering - because I was in tights. the vendors was her lover, "Peter." I tried to feed little to do with the College or with getting degrees. So when I started the mime part I figured they'd just them all sorts of connections to see what they take everything as a joke and I decided right then would come back with. I think a lot of the piece CAROLINE: This way, we came out with much more. and there that every sound in the hall would depended on this. There's one creative mind and there's two creative become something I woyld temper my performance minds and if you can manage to put them together to. If I heard a cough, A would make it a joke, in- DEBORAH: Everybody had a different thing to take you've got something completely new. And twenty corporate it as an impulse for my next reaction. care of. I was conductor. I had to make decisions on creative minds is twenty times better than one. All That's just the way for a performer to handle a whether to cut or to go on. I think that Caroline it needs is a director and it needs the heart behind situation like that. No piece should have to fall communicated to me just what she wanted. it. apart if someone interferes.

QUADRILLE: (To Deborah) What exactly was your QUADRILLE: How long did it take to put everything DEBORAH: You have to change all the time. Per- role in making CIRKOOKOOSS? Besides being together? forming in your own room for yourself or for a few conductor, did you create any of the characters? friends is one thing; when you get a live audience CAROLINE: We had been having individual out there it reacts so much - suddenly you get a DEBORAH: No. We talked a lot about the piece. I rehearsals for clowns, musicians, acrobats, and cosmic type of communication. Even in a set piece tried to get into Caroline's mind enough so I could vendors, but we strung the whole thing together in like a Beethoven concerto, you have to be able to know emotionally and dramatically the right three nights. Timing was the big problem. And give.

32 Quadrille Quadrille 33 A Critique by CLEMENT Susan Unger GREENBERG'S "BENNINGTON SEMINARS"

Editor's Note: In April the noted art critic Clement to compare art with other kinds of knowledge, I Greenberg conducted a series of seminar find striking similarities between his approach to discussions at Bennington under the sponsorship of art and Wittgenstein's approach to philosophy. the Graham Foundation of Chicago for Advanced Noting these similarities whi!e commuting between Studies in the Fine Arts. The seminars were held in the library (where I wds yjorking on my senior Barn 1 and each lasted for two-and-a-half to three thesis on Wittgenstein) and the seminars gave me hours. a deeper appreciation for Mr. Greenberg's project. Transcripts of tapes of the seminars are now In sharing this appreciation, I trust I will not being prepared at the College and will be used by violently injure Mr. Greenberg's tho':'ght. drawing by Sidney Tillim Mr. Greenberg as the basis for a book whose The idea of an intellectual discipline turning tentative title is "Benningon Seminars." inward to examine the foundations of its own place except in the presence of Greenberg answers like, "If you know all this, why .. The following discussion is one of many possible thought is not new; all philosophy after Kant tradition. (Greenberg, "American-Type do you proceed as if you didn't?" Or our neat approaches to Mr. Greenberg·'s theories; a product acknowledges this as necessary to maintain its Painting," Art and Culture) conclusions were undone with analogies like of Susan's interdivisional major interests, Art status. Investigation of the rules of thought, i.e., The impact of the Greenberg seminars was not "defining Art is like trying to put your finger on a History and Philosophy. logic, and establishment of standards for our unlike Wittgenstein's effect on modern philosophy. pellet of mercury." This sort of understanding is not knowledge of the world according to those rules Mr. Greenberg hoped to make clear what we con easily won; indeed, the seminars often had the air Clement Greenberg spent nine evenings at has had the effect of discrediting much speculative soy about art and thereby to eliminate "inflated of a battlefield. We were battling with our own Bennington College talking about art. Most of his metaphysics. language," expressive flourishes," and other tendencies to say more than was possible; the audience consisted of art majors, art faculty, critics Wittgenstein, in a sense, takes up where Kantian "journalistic" tendencies which often obstruct our turmoil was created by "running our heads up and others interested in problems of aesthetics. Mr. criticism leaves off and continues philosophy's talk of art. In Wittgenstein's words, "What we are against the limits of language." Initially the results Greenberg clearly had a lot of faith in the Ben- reflexive thinking on the level of language. He says were painful and frustrating, but eventually we nington audience; only a short part of each evening that the "limits of thought are the limits of were amazed to discover in our experience the "... the kind of Impression left was not was devoted to his lecture, and the rest was a language" and what we cannot say we cannot think essential truth of Mr. Greenberg's reserved the• enlightenment one feels after series of questions, answers and debate on the (according to the rules of logic). Thus, in order to statements. /earning something new; it was, rather, topics raised. study thinking we must study the language in which When we do "clear up the discussion of art" there a more subtle effect produced by a new His faith was rewarded by the high quality of the our thoughts are expressed. When we know what is remarkably I ittle that can be said. Because a way of looking at things with which we questions and the rigorous thought which ac- is possible to say, we will know what sorts of things work of art is an end in itself, the experience of are already familiar." companied each seminar. Much of this quality can cannot be said. We will avoid the confusions which that work is non-referential. This means we con be attributed to the manner in which Mr. Green- arise when we try to say things which are describe the effect a painting has on our senses, berg conducted the discussions. At no time did he inherently unsayable. destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we but we cannot state its meaning or value in allow fuzzy thinking or facile analogies to creep to It is no accident that Mr. Greenberg is at once an are clearing up the ground of language on which language. Great art is made and appreciated by the floor, nor did he recognize poorly formulated or ardent admirer of Kant and the foremost critic of they stand." The value of Mr. Greenberg's con- "insight;" the knowledge we have of it is intuitive imprecise questions. Those who endured the often- modernist painting. Just as Kant saw purification of clusions lies in a new way of seeing art, implied in and not cognitive. Therefore, any judgments we electric atmosphere created by standards of no less the laws of thought as the business of philosophy, his discovery of a new way to talk about art. make about art will lack the certainty of cognitive than perfection were, in the end, impressed by the so does Greenberg see Modernism as a "process of The problems are solved, not by giving reasoning. The fact that two-plus-two equals four is results. But the kind of impression left was not the self-purification" in art: new information, but by arranging what guaranteed by the rules of deduction, but there ore enlightment one feels after learning something Conventions are overhauled, isolated, we have always known ... We fail to be no such rules to assure the infallibility of aesthetic new; it was, rather, a more subtle effect produced examined, eliminated if found struck by what, once seen, is most judgments. Mr. Greenberg goes so for as to soy by a new way of looking at things with which we inessential ... in order to maintain the striking and most powerful. (Wit- that the best descriptions of art freely admit the are already familiar. irreplacability and renew the vitality of tgenstein) tentativeness of their conclusions. Greenberg did not talk about art as much as he art in the face of a society bent in The value of this discovery is immeasurable, and But what might seem to bs uncertain when did about the way in which it is possible to talk principle on rationalizing everything ... it cannot be grasped without much trial and error. compared to factual knowledge is absolutely about art. Atthough he adamantly resists attempts The devolution of tradition cannot take Again and again our questions elicited from Mr. guaranteed in the terms of aesthetic experience. 34 Quadrille Quadrille 35 That is, the quality of a painting shows itself in our discussion of art. We need some criteria to use in to outwit the public. The public, in turn, has come to If we know that our evaluation of an art object is experience of the painting even though we cannot separating good art from bad. Mr. Greenberg must consider this a supreme value in art. If one can get relative to our perception of it, then it fol lows that prove it in discourse. Our aesthetic verdicts are present us with such criteria if we are to take his hold of something truly far-out he is safe, according any object can become art if it is perceived given inside the immediate experience; they are position seriously, yet he cannot overstep the limits to the "avant-gardiste syndrome." This hierarchy of aesthetically. It is indeed true that with a " flick of one and the same as the intuition. It would follow of language: he cannot legislate or define quality. values is clearly a perversion of the genuine avant- the mind" we can see any situation as art. Mr. that every individual must see for himself how Realizing the latter restriction, Mr. Greenberg garde. Its values are drawn from a reaction to Greenberg even conjectured that man was having good a good painting is. This is the certainty of chose to present the criteria for quality in very avant-gardism, not the art itself. artistic experiences before he fixed them in par- aesthetic experience. loose - sometimes vague - terms. The terms The implications of the avant-gardiste syndrome ticular objects. Such experiences, or "flicks of the A problem arises, however, in the fact that were based on the expectations we might have for were considered in detail over the course of the mind," are necessarily private; hence, solipsistic. although a consensus has been reached over the a work of art and how these expectations are seminars. Mr. Greenberg's comments on the Greenberg does not deny the value of these ac- course of history as to the best paintings, it is no satisfied, surprised, or left wanting. Paradoxically, patron saints of the Far.Out-Marcel Duchamp and tivities; he does, however, question their right to assurance that we can predict what will be great in the only expectation we can have for great art is Andy Warhol - aroused considerable dissent and be called art when judgments of quality are the future. We cannot isolate the set of factors that that we will be surprised - sometimes shocked - discussion. At times he was forced to overlook suspended. make one work of art necessarily better than what I consider to be the importance of their work In calling something art, we assume that it is another. All we can do is reflect on our own ex- in order to maintain his position. public and communicable. The pressure of or- perience of a painting and report it accurately. We However, I found Mr. Greenberg's comments on make explicit the aesthetic judgment which is the current phenomenon of solipsistic art, an off- "Again and again our questions el/cited "The fact that two plus two equals four Is implicit in our immediate experience. Mr. shoot of conceptual art, to be particularly from Mr. Greenberg answers like, 'If you of deduction, Greenberg reiterates Kant's claim that the illuminating. Solipsistic art is a product of the same guaranteed by the rules know all this, why do you proceed as If no such assure aesthetic verdict is unwilled precisely because our sophistication which declines commitment to but there are rules to the you didn't?' Or our neat conclusions infallibility of aesthetic judgments." immediate experience is undifferentiated; that the aesthetic judgments. When thought becomes were undone with analogies like verdict comes before we are able to say whether conscious of itself as perceiving reality, it 'defining Art Is like trying to put your we like or dislike the art object. Only when we recognizes its potential to alter the character of fl!'lger on a pellet of mercury.' " recover the experience reflectively are we con- reality. More accurately, reality exists onlv as our scious of the verdict. We cannot weigh evidence or perception of it. It follows that insofar as each "Just as Kant saw purification of the other judgments to arrive at our decision; only individual has an incommunicable aesthetic ex- laws of thought as the business of another look at the object can change the original perience, the object of experience is a different philosophy, so does Greenberg see version. by the decisions an artist has made in creating the reality for every perception of it. There is no way to Modernism as a ''process of se/f- We can, however, disagree on the quality of art. work. "Good art never clues you in." The essence of agree or disagree on the level of discourse, purlflcatlon" In art ... " Such disagreement might be settled by redirecting quality is the complexity of choices made and the because these individual perceptions defy tran- another's attention in order to make him aware of success of risks taken. GrHnberg observed that the best new art sets out almost deliberately to confound opinion and rHist expectations. "If one can get hold of something truly ticulating one's perceptions of the world in 0 However, precisely what the artist's d•cision far-out he is safe, according to the painting is the struggle to create art. Without the "Mr . Greenberg hoped to make dear consists of, or what our expectations might be, was 'avant-gardlste syndrome.' " struggle, there is no art. This is what the tradition what we can say about art and thereby never discussed. Even assuming that the nature of of Western art is founded on - the objectification to el/m/nate 'Inflated language, ' 'ex- our expectations does determine what wlll surprise of emotions in visually perceptible objects. With no pressive flour/shes,' and other 'four · or satisfy us, the level of these expectations may ~jects to see there can be no visual art. In evading na//stlc' tendencies which often obstruct vary widely. I fHI that If there is no more precise "In calling something art, we assume this brute fact, conceptual art claims that there is our talk of art. In Wittgenstein's words, formulation of what "expectations" might mean, that It Is public and communicable. Th~ nothing more to see in art - it is all ideas. To this 'What we are destroying Is nothing but a and yet if this Is most crucial to any explanation of pressure ·of articulating one's per- IMr. Greenberg wryly replies: "From their failure house of cards and we are cf earing up how quality Is determined, then Mr. GrHnberg's ceptions of the world In a painting Is the to see they concluded there was nothing more to be the ground of language on which they notion of quality is left wanting. struggle to create art. Without that seen." stand." Mr. GrHnberg went on to Illustrate these struggle, there Is no art." I might strengthen Mr. Greenberg's point by criteria for quality in terms of contemporary, adding my own logico-existential paint, as especially conceptual, art. Conceptual art, or the philosophy students are wont to do. The conceptual "all-out far-out" or "medium scrambling" serves to artist indulges in an experience which is slation into other terms. Over the last fifty years, faulty attention, a restricted attitude, or other illustrate his point quite conveniently. It is necessarily private. He then attempts to transmit according to Mr. Greenberg, it is a matter of course factors which prevent a clear perception of the academic, i.e., "bad" art becauH It understands the this experience by creating a work of art. Yet the that art critics should not explicitly point to good or work. An individual may be taught to see a given element of surpriH all too well and it follows the art, he claims, is not the object, but the experience. bad art or discourse on quality. The critic's job is painting with new eyes, in a way that will deepen path of least resistance. The artist commits himHlf We cannot share his art then, because we cannot description, not evaluation. After all, if there are his appreciation of art. to a certain style and thereafter receives his jump outside our own experience to have his. alternative ways of seeing, who is to say that one Mr. Greenberg's discussion of aesthetic decisions rather than making them himself, The Therefore, he has not created art, because it is not set of values is more authoritative than another? judgments reinforces a stand which has long been element of risk is eliminated; the artist becomes a public. The fact that he calls attention to his ex- We are left to choose among alternative conceptual the foundation of his critical position: that craftsman, left to work out the details. perience by naming it art leads me to believe that judgments of quality are not only an inevitable, but Conceptual art breeds off this academic spirit schemes with no sure means of evaluation. he wants to communicate it to others; yet all at- a necessary part of any aesthetic experience. To because it takes refuge in an unqualified com- Solipsistic art is a logical offshoot of this in- tempts to transcend his privacy are frustrated by evade the issue of quality is to evade an honest mitment to shock and the attempt to surprise, or tellectual dilemma. his own egocentricity.

38 Quadrille Quadrille 37 We: Why do you think they chose you for Rutgers? An IInterview with the Blousteins He: (Laughing) You'd better ask them. RUTH ELLEN: I think you'll probably know how to at Bennington College is that it consists largely of She: 'Cause he has green eyes. swim, but you'll have to learn more unusual people who are radical to the point of being strokes. utopian. And the role I had to play here was to ED: That's a good way to put it. There are a lot of temper their utopianism. At Rutgers there aren't things that are the sam~ in other words. enough utopians, there aren't enough radicals, and QUADRILLE: You'll be working within a different my role will be a different one. Rather than having kind of administrative framework, won't you? to temper anyone, I'll be allowed the luxury of ED: Oh yes. And that's one of the reasons that the seeming more radical and utopian than most of the job may be easier. You have more middle-level people there. administration between you and what's actually What I've done here has been to temper and to happening. At Bennington I could go into any office hold this campus back. I've been the modulating tomorrow, I think, and run the office; I'm that force and sometimes modulation was against my directly related to what is going on. At Rutgers, grain. But I knew it was the role I should perform. there might be four or five levels of administrators QUADRILLE: Is there anything tangible that these before the actual stuff takes place. And that's a sort six years at Bennington have given you, that you of insulation, emotional insulation. The presidency will apply to your new job? of Rutgers will be more of a policy-making role than ED: Oh, a lot of things. One, which I'm sure is an operational role. somehow translatable, is the relationship between QUADRILLE: Do you have much of an idea yet of the the arts to the tradition of the humanities that is so climate of student feeling at Rutgers? extraordinary here. It hasn't been duplicated in ED: Yes. The day after the announcement of my many other institutions. If I do nothing else at appointment I asked the Vice President of Student Rutgers, I hope I'll be able to introduce some sense Affairs to set up a meeting with as many students that the conventional wisdom of liberal education as he could gather in the Student Activities has to include more sensibility, more of an Building. On a Saturday morning I sat for about emotional and aesthetic component than it has in three hours with what must hove been fifty or sixty the past. Another thing is the Work Program; I students. I had a great give-and-take session with think we have found here certain educational them. It could never have taken place at Ben- values in a work program that should work on any nington, for q variety of reasons. I think most of the scale. Also, the flexibility - although that's a very QUADRILLE: What was your first reaction when you ones, but I've now been in private higher education students at Bennington have a more fixed view of misused term - of the educational program here were told you were being considered for the for six years and I was ready for the different kind what a college president is. Many of the students implies a lot of important concepts that I can bring of challenge that public education represents. who come here come with the stereotypes of a to Rutgers. So offhand, those are three things which presidency of Rutgers? ED: I had been considered for maybe a half dozen Secondly, I wanted an urban center. I feel that this liberally educated group of young people and with I can carry directly to the new job. jobs of this sort, and when you first hear about it is, in a sense, where many of the major problems in certain rigidities of opinion which, in their way, are I do think that Bennington is one of the most there's nothing to do or: say. You're on a list. education are at. as obnoxious and as limiting to real thoughtfulness exciting places in higher education today. A NEW Someone tells you you're on a list. You disappear QUADRILLE: Why do you think they chose you? as are the stereotypes and rigidities of, say, YORK TIMES reporter at a fairly large press con- off a list. I disappeared off a lot of lists. I didn't ED: (Laughing) You'd better ask them. members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the ference in New Brunswick asked the opening know anything about Rutgers and at that time had RUTH ELLEN: 'Cause he has green eyes. American Legion. The students here, for one question, something like, "Why are you leaving a no strong convictions either way. The first time I ED: Oh, I can guess. They were looking, I'm fairly reason or another, never gave me the freedom to little girls' college like Bennington to come to really began to think seriously about it was in certain, for a man of liberal educational per- express myself that I found _at Rutgers. Rutgers? QUADRILLE: Could you elaborate? January of this year, when a member of the search suasion. I think they liked the combination of my RUTH ELLEN: Wretched beast. I almost got up and committee was delegated to interview me. And at being a lawyer and a humanist. ED: At Bennington, given students coming from the slugged him - swat him one in the kisser. that time I lfiarned that the list was down to ten. QUADRILLE: Do you feel you're going into an en- upper middle class w.ho have grown up with ED: And I said to him what I think is the case; that Then I started asking a lot of questions ·about the vironment where after being thrown into water j:iarents much like me, I seem sort of like the there's no institution that's been more influential in you'll have to learn to swim in it, or do you feel you parents they've left and half-rejected. At Rutgers higher education in the past thirty-eight years than place. I was attracted to it initially for two reasons. One already know how to handle what you'll have to the student body comes from a much different Bennington College. And I think that's still the case was that it is a public university. If I was going to do? social class. I'm going to have the appearance of today. This college has a kind of quality - and Ruth change at all, I wanted to go in the direction of the ED: No, I'll have to learn to swim. My experience being a radical, a liberal; whereas at Bennington I Ellen and I travel a great deal to lots of different problems of a public institution. Not that I admire here was on-the-job training and I'm going to need was sort of a middle figure. colleges - that you don't find or feel anywhere or think public institutions are better than private a lot of on-the-job training at Rutgers. Let me put it one other way. One of the dangers else. QUadrill• 39 38 Quadrille solutely true. First time we went to one restaurant QUADRILLE: How will the move affect your prac- about to make almost the same kind of discovery he had never had squid stuffed with clams, so tice? I'm about to make. Both going off to college. naturally he had to have it. ED: Both freshmen. RUTH ELLEN: I've already had two iob offers; one QUADRILLE: Don't you ever get hooked on RUTH ELLEN: You know something? Actually, I don't which sounds very interesting, which I think I'll something? want to go to Rutgers because I don't want to leave take. But there's one problem which bothers me. ED: My wife. I'm hooked o· · my wife. Vermont. Everybody's aware of that, obviously; I've Here, I've been able to work it out so that I could RUTH ELLEN: And he's hoc1

40 Quadrille Quadrille 41 • community would like to have pets remain on existential confusion. A campus where I could only NOTES FROM COMMONS GALLEYS campus if proper care and responsibility is taken with difficulty distinguish men from brute un- This spring, numerous open messages touching our first community meeting in March: a context, I for them. Below is a statement of our new policy on thinking beasts would afford me some small on issues such as student parity (the old standby). would say, of jamming the works, subverting hard pets. We hope you will understand the need for emblematic solace, and I appreciate the efforts of pets on campus, the financial troubles of the Coop thought with a self-avowed struggle for Power this, and respond to it in the communal spirit in the New Pet Committee on my behalf. I would be Store, and the search for a new president, have rather than light. The wall-space of the College has which it is being presented. intellectually ill at east at Bennington without the been circulated throughout the College community. been bristling with Sino-revolutionary slogans (Section V of Statement) pets, and should they be banned, I would follow dividing us in a cross-fire of factions: Enemies vs A sampling is presented here, along with a report Complaints. after them, a wag tailing the dogs." from President Bloustein on the progress of the Friends, Strugglers vs Oppressors, Marxmen vs The Pet Committee is solely responsible for Diogenes Holland for the Cynics Against Dogs new Arts Center and an announcement by Mrs. Sitting Ducks. community pet problems outside of the houses Richard S. Emmet, Chairman of the Board of Under this kind of pre-fabricated cloud we are (whose problems are the responsibility of their Trustees, of a new member of the Presidential now asked to talk about, of all things, Parity, respective residents and chairmen). not Judicial. Search Committee. Equity, Justice. I am concerned about the uses to Exec., or SSO. Meetings of the Pet Committee are --0- which a legitimate issue is being put in an at- held on every other Tuesday evening at 7:00 in April 7, 1971 mosphere of aggravated mistrust and partisan Kilpatrick living room. Complaints will be con- "Due to circumstances beyond our control. many aggression. It is a weird notion to me that Equity, sidered on paper in Box 395. However, greater students who were not invited by the Faculty which I have always associated with an objective consideration will be given to people who come in Educational Policies Committee and the Student search for justice, can be occupied like an office or person to our meetings, so that we can discuss the Educational Policies Committee to the faculty sat-in-upon. To my way of thinking Parity as an problem. meeting this afternoon are nevertheless coming. instrument of Power and an outcome of connivance The Pet Committee has the authority to recommend This action, however well intentioned, has in- is not Parity at all, but a way of making opposition expulsion of an individual pet to Judiciary, subject terfered with the faculty's right to hold its own diametrical. It has all the symmetry of two armed to appeal. We ask that complaints be taken ~eting on the issue of student parity prior to a camps - an old-fashioned Balance of Power which seriously by all concerned. general meeting on this subject. Therefore, the creates wars where none need be and polices a Working for peace, Factff.t-y Educational Policies Committee is can- rotten old Maginot line of entrenched positions. It The Pet Committee celling the faculty meeting scheduled this af- assumes that More People Make More Justice, that Nina Jody, Chairman ternoon. It will schedule other meetings on this an Athenian jury of 500, which convicted Socrates, We invite comment from all on the content of this subject as soon as they can be arranged." is juster than a civil jury of twelve; that battles are Statement.' The Faculty Educational waged by counting the corpses. --0- --0- , Policies Committee The fiction of the inherent equity of numbers is a April 22, 1971 April 26, 1971 --0- great ethical and philosophical vulgarity. If Power ANIM-ADVERSIONS II "Mr. Holland, April 8, 1971. Parity as Power is really the issue - and we are told again and " ...Somehow, Miss Jody, perhaps in the blushing . . .the New Pet Committee hereby extends a "My real concern is not for l?arity as such, whose again that it is - the Equity of Power merely good intentions that have carried you to the special invitation to you to attend our next benefits and illusions need to be talked about, but arranges two constituencies at opposite ends of a chairmanship of the N.P.C., you have chosen to meeting. We do want to say that we appreciate for the context which has been created for it since rope for a tug of war which to me is a sorry parody neglect the experience this campus has had with your helpful and constructive comments on our of "struggle" and a dismal guarantee of deadlocks proposal. Unfortunately it seems that on this to come... " pets since September •. Why, "in response to in- creasing complaints," do you bather to form a new campus where no one takes any responsibility for Ben Belitt anyone elses 'shit.' the pet problem is not an ex- --0- committee? What happened to the old committee / (and the old complaints) and to the stipulations ception. Perhaps you are the individual to set a new In an article that appeared on May 18 in the under which pets were originally permitted on example. No one who does not own a pet has yet to WALL STREET JOURNAL, staff reporter Christian Hill campus, i.e. that three complaints against a pet dedicate any time to figuring out a viable solution outlined this year's "hot issue," this year's special ended its stay? ...And what could be more self- to the problem of pets except to write adept headache to college administrators all over the evidently absurd than having the Pet Committee, exercises in sarcasm from the safety of their hide- nation as, " ...dogs on campus, four-footed variety composed of the very pet owners that have for outs. It seems that although the problems of pets - hordes of them ,marring the greensward, in- many months ignored complaints about their ere minute in comparison to the other situations on vading classes, hungrily massing around cafeterias, animals, assume disciplinary responsibility · for this campus, they are here to stay as long as the and doing insulting things to campus monuments." 'community pet problems.' Would you also animals stay. Dogs will bark and shit (and for those Bennington has tasted its share of the controversy, recommend that Judicial be composed of known tenderfeet who demand it, shit will have to be as is indicated by the following four Galleys. criminals? Miss Jody, do you know what it means to picked up). Of course no one is suggesting that you April 19, 1971 wag a dog by its tail? soil your 'heavy hands' or delicate emotional toes "A Statement on Pet Policy from the New Pet ...I emphatically do not recommend the ban- picking up shit since you seem best at shelling it Committee ning of pets. On the contrary, I think that everybody out." In response to increasing complaints concerning should get a pet, or several pets. I would like to see Doing our best to please, pets on campus, a new pet Committee has been this campus overrun with cats and dogs. (True, the the New Pet Committee formed to attempt to alleviate some of the walls are already covered with Maoist dogma, and -0- problems. For now, we are working under the Miss Jody'~ canard may lead the way to more July 1, 1971 assumption that most members of the college variety in our menagerie). We should objectify our (Excerpt from a notice sent by SSO to all incoming 42 Quadrille Quadrille 43 frugal. This is affecting the Store and changes will have to be made accordingly. The assistance of the never be committed beyond our resources. Phase I, Community is requested to facilitate these the Suzanne Lemberg Usdan Gallery wing of the changes. visual arts center, will be finished next fall and Faculty can help by ordering texts after checking provide two large, well-lit floor areas each 100' by I I 45'. I the editions available in the Store ... \ Until Phase II can be built the Gallery will be \ ' Students can help by buying their books in the and returning students) Store when there is no difference in price com- used as studio space for the visual arts and produce "The 'trial term' of allowing pets on campus has pared to that of the city stores ... what we hope will be a happy chain reaction: as been in effect for over one and-a-half terms. Since the Visual Arts vacate scattered studios, Dance will Everyone can help in general by joining the Coop the trial began there have been an overwhelming fall heir to the entire third floor of Commons, Music Store. The ten dollar shares provide additional and number of both verbal and written complaints from will occupy all of the Carriage Barn and Jennings, necessary buying power. Without members the all . constituencies - student, faculty, staff - Store would soon be forced to cut back con- while Drama will have additional workshop areas received in the Student Services Office. Efforts of in the old science laboratories in the Barn's west siderably in services. As a member, therefore, one two Pet Committees and SSO to enforce the wing. helps oneself by receiving dividends on sales slips; regulations have failed totally resulting in: per- one helps the Store by reducing its income tax ..." The complete loss thro.ugh burning of the Pottery manently stained and soiled carpets; soiled, torn shed and kiln just this spring underlies how im- The Coop Store Board: and pulled upholstery; ruined lawns; stench and portant it is for us all to push on with the Arts Valery Bell (Secretary) Peter Lackowski mess in House common areas and other college Center project: Phase II, the main visual arts Megan Bierman Betsy Robinson buildings; torn screens, scratched paint and studios and Phase Ill, the three performance Alan Cheuse Stanley Scott woodwork; noise, dirt, dog fights, dog bites; at· workshops. Studios such as Graphics and Metal Christopher Johnstone (Chairman) Stephen Till tacked cyclists and pedestrians; run-over animals; Sculpture are now housed in poorly ventilated --0- uncared-for, locked-up, hungry and abandoned cellars and garages, while the Commons and Barn June 10, 1971 Store board has had the temerity to suggest that I pets; hostility growing everywhere. Studio theaters are inadequate in almost all "I have been a student here for four years. I am leave my ten dollars in the pot for another year to The Administration must now respond to the respects. graduating this June. It has not been easy for me. help ease the present crisis. Not I! Once charitable, complaints by reassuming its responsibility to Let me only add that the construction we have At Bennington th.e emphasis is on the individual, I have grown miserly and bitter; once an eager provide liveable and workable housing conditions thus far undertaken and the construction we plan is and I have always been socially inclined. I have student, I now avoid the Barn; once extroverted, I for the College's students by banning pets from the paid for out of gifts especially given for that pur- sought, in vain, the experience of community here. have become a recluse. Misanthropy is the campus as of the Fall Term 1971. .. " pose. The current operating budget and current This year, what with campus politics, the dogs, and dividend that I will take from this year at Ben- Rebecca B. Stickney, Director of SSO tuition are not burdened with such costs: moreover, the men, it has been especially bad. I found myself nington. I will burn my Co-operative Store sales --0- the money used for building p ... rposes could not be turning for a sense of community to that once proud slips, with my diploma, at Commencement." May 6, 1971 Constance Barnacle (not my real name) used for current operating costs." "The Cooperative Store stands in danger of ,-~ ~~ "\ 11 . .l -o- Edward J. Blaustein closing. The Cooperative Store is not subsidized by ,.,. \ ·.· .-r; President \) ~-) June 7, 1971 the College, except in so far as it pays no rent and ..... "Memo to all Bennington Constituencies: Now -o- 0 ' .. ';'~ May 16, 1971 has free utilities and janitorial service. that the first phase of Bennington's Arts Center Is in The Store makes its money from sales and the ground I would Ilk• to report to everyone "I have no one to propose for the Presidency but commissions on exhibits. From its profits, the Store connected with the College on the state of the I want to suggest that only women be considered. has to pay wages for full-time employees and construction program. Next fall, with an expected I was recently privy to a negotiation (If that Is the student help, purchases, auditing, income tax (on student body of 585, we wlll not be far from the word) at the Col leg• where a faculty member was non-member sales). personal property tax (on optimum size of 600 decided upon over six years discussed and evaluated by the thrH top offlclals inventory), supplies, F.l.C.A .. and insurance. symbol of our sharing, the Co-operative Store. I ago. - the president and two deans. The main problem that the Store faces is the patronized that Store, and I defended it against the In these six years, as the student body has great decrease in sales - this is in all sections of criticisms of my fellows .. .I endured the Store's gradually risen from 350, we have constructed What came through was that all thrH were middle the goods carried but shows mostly in books: sales inefficiency with equanimity: that the Store lacked three student houses, Fels, Noyes and Sawtell aged monogamous males - "family men" Is, I are down $4000 compared to last year during the many books that I needed and ordered them only (1968): three houses In North Bennington have believe, the expression. period July-March and supplies down $2000 for the after incessant prodding and a down payment, I been purchased and converted to student use, And perhaps 50 years ago this would have sHmed same period. The total decrease in sales for those was willing to overlook; that the employees of the Ludlow (1965), Welling Town House (1969) and Hill as It should to almost everyone. months was $7000, and that includes increased Store were often too busy gossipping with each House (1970): a new dining and kitchen wing on prices. The Store will certainly be in the red by the other or too occupied with rearranging the colors at Commons (1970), the Dickinson Science Building But now the family and marriage are In pretty bad end of the year. the Art Bar to attend to me, I could pardon; that one and the Tlshman Lecture Hall (1970) have bHn shape, and few look to the Father - or just to the Obviously what this means is that the Store is not lady, when I asked for a certain edition of an Ovid built. All this represents a capital Investment of Father --;- for authority. being supported by the Community to the extent translation, curtly replied, 'We do not sell birth approximately $4,000,000. that it has been previously. It cannot compete with control devices here.' I found myself able to The new Arts Center will satisfy our urgent need And indHd I did note that the advice of our thrH the discount stores in the area because it is a small forgive ... for academic space In the arts. The cost of the friends was consistently anachronistic - out of operation without the support of a large chain of Now I learn that the store had finished in the red whole project has risen to $5,000,000 of which we touch -the wave, not of the future, but of the past. stores to offer lower prices. Students are sharing and that there will be no dividends ...meaningless, have on hand $1,700,000 in gifts or pledges. Other energlei are needed, other criteria. And books, using the library, and being generally is my scrupulous collection of pink slips. The Co-op Construction will be In thrH phases so that we will obviously one rich source will be women. 44 Quadrille Quadrille 45 And this is still chiefl) a college_fQf women. I can hundreds of women who are quaI if ied for the job, College and the Vermont State Department of BEHAVIOR SCIENCE NOTES, and "Caribbean Crews: think of nothing these young women need more and take our pick of the best of them. Education . Male Peer Groups in Caribbean Society" in than liberation from the male, not least from the . . .Throughout the history of the College there ---0- CARIBBEAN STUDIES. In addition he is co-author of Supermale, the pater families who is machismo has not only been no woman president - there has SIDNEY TILLIM lectured on "Represntation and EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA: A PROSPECTIVE incarnate." never even been a woman dean, and there has Quality" at the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery in ANALYSIS OF UNESCO, and his book CRAB ANTICS: Eric Bentley always been a majority of men on the faculty .. Regina, Saskatchewan in February. In May, his THE SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF CARIBBEAN ---0- Bennington has always been proud of its in- drawings were exhibited in the Contemporary SOCIETY is to be published by Yale University May 17, 1971 novative, experimental spirit. Perhaps it is time for Press. "Bennington College has never had a woman as Drawings Show at French & Co. in New York City. Bennington to try a modest, but long overdue ---0- its president. This is clearly a matter of choice - ---0- "experiment" - a woman president." 1n May ISAAC WITKIN had a one-man show at the either explicit or implicit, probably a little of both. Peter Lackowski PET ER J. WILSON has recently published the Robert Elkon Gallery in New York City. This The job of president of a small college is exacting, ~- following a r ticles : " Sentimental Structure : summer the Robert Hull Fleming Museum in but it does not require any combination of rare June 15, 1971 Migration and Descent Among the Tsimihety" in Burlington, Vermont is running a retrospective qualities that are found only in men. There are, of "To the Community: AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, an ethnographic exhibition and, in conjunction, a documen-tary film course, more men than women who have the The alumna at large who will join the com- summary of the Tsimihety of Madagascar in on his work. routine qualifications of the Ph.D., etc., but there is mittee of faculty, students, and trustees in the no shortage of highly qualified women. If Ben- search for a new president of the college is nington College were to decide to look for a Katherine Evarts Merck '46 (Mrs. Albert), of woman president, it would have no difficulty in Mendham, New Jersey. finding one. She was a Science major at Bennington whose This year there are almost 200 colleges and interest and activities have been related to universities looking for presidents - looking for education and mental health, and recently to Fair men, that is. We could compete in this "market" Housing and the Urban League. Currently she is and spend most of next year trying to find working in the field of prison corrections in New someone. Or, we can do what should have been Jersey." done years ago: recognize the fact that there are Mrs. Richard S. Emmet

FACULTY NOTES

Ezra Laderman and Richard Moryl, the latter with the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, for Desto Records. On May 23 he performed at Princeton University with the Group for Contemporary Music of Columbia University. ---0- D R. IRVING LYON is spending the summer at Jackson Memorial Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, as Visiting Investigator in Studies of Genetic Aspects of Active Transport Mechanisms. From July 25-31 he is attending the XXV International Congress of Physiological Sciences in Munich, where he has been invited to deliver a paper on "In Vitro Rat Gut Trans-membrane Potentials." ---0- - During Long Week~rd at the end of April, LEONARD ROWE travelled to Paris and London to interview a number of surviving former leaders and Isaac Wltldn Neil Ropapport members of Jewish self-defense organizations A new book by HAROLD KAPLAN entitled which existed in Poland prior to WW II. He has been DEMOCRATIC HUMANISM AND AMERICAN researching this topic since last NRT and will LITERATURE will be published by the University of complete a monograph in the near future. This Chicago Press in March, 1972. summer, he is directing for the sixth consecutive ---0- year, the College Workshop for Advanced High

1n May, JACOB GLICK recorded compositions of School Students, a joint program run by Bennington For Beth Mocveety '73, who was killed ina car accident Moy 30, 197 r.

46Quadrille Quadrille 4 7 A lecture and film' presentation entitled work by Vivian Fine entitled "Sounds of the "Reorganization of Psychic Structures in Autism: A Nightingale" was given May 19 in the Carriage EVENTS Study Using Body Movement Therapy" was given on Barn. ~ May 13 in Tishman by Mrs. Beth Kalish, body- A cursory look at happenings at Bennington, taken On April 18, . the Special Events Committee spon- -0- movement therapist and Research Associate at the from the pages of COLLEGE WEEK and other sored a reading by 1943 Bennington graduate and Developmental Centre for Autistic Children in sources. Theodore G. Mehlin, Professor of Astronomy at actress Nancy Cole, entitled "Gertrude Stein's Philadelphia. ---0- Gertrude Stein," in the Carriage Barn Lounge. Williams College, delivered a lecture on May 25 ---0- During April and May, four series of films continued ---0- entitled "Beyond Yesterday's Horizons," sponsored to supply a varied and active film schedule on Al so on May 13, the Literature Division sponsored a by Science Division. On April 17 and 18 "When the World Was Young," a campus. ihe concluding lectures from the Kenneth lecture by John Seelye on "The Hobbit Habit: ---0- Clark "Civilisation" Series were shown each week children's play written and directed by Maurice Tripping Along with Kesey, Brautigan, and Segal." in Tishman Hall. French films, in conjunction with Breslow, was presented for the town and college Mr. Seelye is a Professor of English at the On Wednesday, May 31 a lecture entitled "Sexism: the course in the French Cinema, continued to be communit_ies in Commons Theatre. University of Connecticut, author of MEL VILLE: THE A Grave Challenge to Law" was delivered by Mary shown and made open to the public each week in -0-- IRONIC DIAGRAM and THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF Kelly, third year law student at NYU Law School. HUCK FINN, and is a specialist on American pop Among the topics discussed were equal em- Tishman. Among these films sponsored by the Eva Guest musician Manuel Enriquez performed works Gebhard Gourgaud Foundation were "The 400 culture. ployment, executive orders, family law, and tax by Mexican and American composers, including a law. ---0- Blows," and "Shoot the Piano Player," "Jules et work of his own for tape and violin, Wednesday, -0- Jim," and a series of short films from the New April 21 in the Carriage Barn. A Lecture-Demonstration followed by a concert was Cinema Program. Paul Gray's Course in Con- ---0- given May 14 by the Javanese Chamber Gamelon On Tuesday, June 1 the Senior Art Show opened in temporary Trends in Theatre and Film offered Orchestra, a group composed of nine musicians the New Gallery in the Carriage Barn and con- Kafka's "The Castle," Le Roi Jones' "The Dutch- "The Journal of the Albion Moonlight," a play from Wesleyan University. The performances were tinued until Graduation Weekend, June 18-19. man," "Ulysses," "The Loneliness of the Long adapted from Kenneth Patchen's anti-war novel sponsored by the Special Events Committee. Exhibitors were: Joanne Beskind, Constance Distance Runner," and others. The Special Events and directed by Judith Gershman, was performed -0- Richardson Boden, Nancy Glimm Bradshaw, Inge- Committee sponsored Saturday night films in- in Tishman Hall April 23, 24, and 25. Lise Eckmann, Kathy Halbreich, Joan B. Horris, cluding "Ale~ander Nevsky," "She Done Him ---0- Carnival Weekend took place May 14-16. It was Elaine G.Hyams, Antoinette Jacobson, Lee Wrong" (Mae West, 1933), "Horsefeathers" (The launched Friday evening by a talent show entitled On Wednesday, April 28 a concert entitled "Bass Jamison, Janis Pryor, JoAnn Rothschild, Ruth Marx Brothers, 1932). Pasolini's "The Gospel "Original Amateur Horror"; Saturday evening's Night," featuring twenty-five basses playing in ' Paddock Stanley, Stephen Till, Eleanor Thompson, According to St. Matthew" (1964), and "Don festivities included dinner outdoors and a concert ensemble and diverse small works, was performed Martha Von Blon and Polly Welch. tluixote" (Kozintsev, 1957). of music by the Bennington Beagle and Pure Lard in in the Carriage Barn. - - -0- the Carriage Barn. Saturday was devoted to -0- ---0- campus-improvement projects such as the planting Sponsored by the Science Division, Dr. Leonard C. Sen i or Concerts by violinist and composer Carolyn of flower beds around the houses, lawn work, Feldstein gave a talk Thursday, June 3 entitled "A Bond and guitarist Stephen Ashe were given in the cleaning the area around the Sculpture Studio, and Philosophy of the Person: Reflexibility and Carriage Barn May 5 and May 9 respectively. collection of trash all over campus and closing Replication." Dr. Feldstein is currently in private ---0- down and clearing up the old dump. The work was practice of psychotherapy in New York City and is a made festive by generous quantities of beer and 0n May 1O Ben Belitt presented "The Sound Sense," wine. Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. a reading and commentary of his recent poetry, in -0- ---0- the Carriage Barn Lounge. On Sunday, June 6, Purcell's opera "Dido and ---0- On Tuesday May 18, the Social Science Divsion Aeneas" was produced as a Senior Project by sponsored a talk by Jonathan Mirsky entitled A lecture entitled "The Film Performer as Catherine Satterlee in the Carriage Barn. Soloists "China: What Happened to the Yellow Peril?" Mr. Characteri.vright: A Creative Approach to Acting were: Catherine Satterlee as Dido, Douglas Mirsky is Associate Professor of Chinese History at for the Camera," was given by Paul Gray in Tish- Houston as Aeneas, Joel Katz as the Sorcerer, and Dartmouth and has traveled extensively in the For man Hall Tuesday, May 11. Pam Downes as Belinda. East. He is co-author of PEACE IN VIETNAM and a ---0- contributor to AMERICA'S ASIA, LAOS: WAR AND -0- 0n Wednesday, May 12, a Senior Recital of works REVOLUTION, and CRIMES OF WAR. Guitarist Clore Weinraub gave a Senior Concert of by Beethoven, Stravinsky, Brant, and Snyder was -0- given by pianist and composer Amy Snyder in the works by Gaspar Sanz, Arnold Schonberg, Villa Lobos, Boccherini, Bach, and Weinraub on Wed- David Scribner Carriage Barn. The class in Contemporary Studies in Black Music nesday, June 9. Stephen Mueller at Wltkln 's snow In N. Y.C. ---0- sponsored a two-day visit by musician-composer- -0- An art exhibition by special student Stephen Th u rsd ay, May 13 the Social Science Division percussionist Milford Graves, who gave per- Mueller was held in the Carriage Barn Gallery from sponsored a lecture and discussion on "Women in formances in Tishman Hall and at the Dance A concert of Baroque music for recorder was April 27 to May 25. Mr. Mueller received 'l Master Workshop May 18 and 19. China" in Tishman Hall. The speaker was Ann presented on June 13 by Literature major Phillip of Arts from Bennington this June. Tomkins, who had recently returned from an ex- -0- Holland ~n recorder and Lisa Dorsey on harp- ---0- tended stay in the Peoples' Republic of China. sichord. It included sonatas by Handel and A Faculty Concert, featuring works by Frank Baker, Quadrille Telemann and Bach's Fourth Brandenburg Con- 48 Henry Brant, and the first performance of o new certo.

Quadrille 49 WINDFEST By Karen Oram '72

tween the College and other communities. There were seven days of uninterrupted music- the symbolic manifestation of the notational In a spirit similar to that of the Moog Safari which Each day of the Wind Festival was devoted to making, something I had not seen before in the symbol. was made to various colleges by members of the work in a different category of wind instruments, three years I had been at Bennington. I say music- What I have spoken of so far is the outwardly Music Division during NRT and described by Jacob followed by an evening concert in the Carriage making because one of the things I realized most comprehensible element of music which occurs in Glick in the last issue of QUADRILLE, a Wind Barn. On the final day, a concert was given at the graphically during the Festival was that music is a the mind and the body of the musician. Music- Festival was held at Bennington May 23-30. The Bennington Armory by all Festiyal participants. process; it does not exist unless it is played. It may making involves another dimension, embodied in Festival was sponsored by the Music Division under The following personal view of the Festival is be played in the mind, but I think that that is a the person of the conductor. Watching Henry tne leadership of Gunnar Schonbeck, and its I pur- offered by Literature student Karen Oram '72. unilateral appreciation which does not include the conduct, I began to realize what a complex per- pose to Incorporate work was 'twofold: the that personalities of the performers or the time at which formance conducting is. The conductor must read was being done at the College into a festival and, in the piece is played or, most importantly, the in- the music, hear it in his mind, and project what he Gunnar's words, "to do something at the .College terpretation of the conductor. And throughout an has heard into his body in order to draw an which would involve the general community The finest aspect of the Wind Festival was that it included all varieties and stages of musical work. actual performance, the performer acts on the identical response in the mind of the performer. (consequently, people of varying ages and musical There were unrehearsed, partially-rehearsed, and music and the music, in concert, acts on the per- Even before I began taking music at Bennington ability) without affecting our own pace." While the very thoroughly rehearsed pieces. The. performers former. this year, I had had the feeling, simply by watching Moog Safari was at /east partially intended to bring Since the festival. I have discovered several Henry conduct, that I could almost hear the music Bennington music and musicians to the world-at- themselves ranged from the near-beginner to the well-known professional, and anyone who could cyclical patterns like the one mentioned above. he was motioning. And at the last rehearsals of was more large, the Wind Festival designed to This is not to imply however, that music is limited to "Angels and Devils" I began to understand also that bring the world-at-large to Bennington. The in- play the instrument of the evening was urged to patterns; actually, it is one of the least tangible the discipline of the performer must be immense to tention in both cases was to loosen barriers be- participate. mddia I know. As a literature student, I find myself enable him to react to each word of the conductor's trying to catch some of the intangibility in words so physical vocabulary. Henry said that when he that I may hold on to whatever part that the raises his finger a quarter of an inch, the house music deigns to let me have. The patterns I have should jump. I envy him the subtle power of his art. discovered and the words I use to describe them After experiencing the rehearsals of "Angels and must necessarily be metaphysical, since the very Devils" I felt out of other pieces in the Wind Festival illllli nature of music is symbolic. whose.rehearsals I had not attended; I felt I was This mysterious phenomenon became apparent hearing only half the Berg, half the Stravinsky, half to me during the last three rehearsals of Henry the Bach. This happened because I did not know the Brant's "Angels and Devils" which was performed language of these pieces and thus was not aware with Claude Monteux as solo flute on Tuesday of of the subtle nuances and depths of meaning the Wind Festival week. I had attended many of the inherent in them. I did not grow with them in- previous rehearsals which Gunner Schonbeck had tellectually, through recognizing the symbols and conducted for Henry and, during that time, I had then seeing them mean something new each time gotten rid of my long-standing shyness at not being the piece was played. And as a result, I did not able to read a score. At Gunnar's suggestion, I had relate to them as emotionally as I could have. sat behind one of the piccolo performers and had In all, I think it is one of the most delightful tried to read her part. I had had trouble at first; features of Bennington that I and many others were then unexpectedly, I found myself beginning to able to spend time witnessing and participating in recognize passages of the piece and "seeing" them an area from which we otherwise might have reproduced in the written notes. I became aware remained separate. The relaxed atmosphere of the that musical notation is in that sense a symbolic Wind Festival, along with the opportunity to learn language of the purest variety. The sound that is music for seven consecutive days. enabled many of produced when the performer recognizes the note- us to sort out our musical experiences in a more letter and thereby obtains a mental image of the conclusive way, and to prepare ourselves to go on. I sound and then blows in his instrument to create will remember the Wind Festival as a time when the sound, has no organic relation to the black ink the known and the unknown came together with object which gives him the impetus for the the experienced and the inexperienced, and made operation just described. The sound, therefore, is music. Rehearsing for Wlndfest· Quadrille 51 50 Quadrille GRADUATION, 1971

52 Quadrille Quadrille 53 SIX STUDIOS: SOHO More than two hundred and fifty people took ALUMNI NOTES advantage of a unique opportunity to visit studios of artists in the Soho area of New York City Three important decisions were reached during Polly Sinclair Buck '48, Allison Simmons Chapin '68, ARTISTS STUDIO TOUR provided through a benefit sponsored by the the meeting on campus May 20 and 21 of the Pat Groner Dubin '61, Joan Rice Franklin '56, Metropolitan New York Committee of the Ben- Bennington College Alumni Council. The first was a Sondra Parkoff Henry '50, and Edward Thommen nington College Alumni Association. Ap- recommendation that the College continue to '40. proxim~tely five thousand dollars was raised by publish one alumni issue of QUADRILLE per year. The Council was encouraged to learn that the the pro1ect for Bennington's Art Scholarship Fund. Lin.do Guidall-Shapiro '63, editor of the March 1971 Alumni Fund stood ahead of the same date the Included in the tour were the studios of Herbert alumni issue, included the following statement in preceding yea; in terms both of dollars and donors, Ferber, Kenneth Noland, Herbert Perr, Lorry Poons, her report to the Council. and voted to include in the Minutes of the meeting Michael Steiner, and Frank Stella. Benefit Chairmen "The purpose is manifold. It offers a an expression of appreciation and congratulation were Barbara Lazear Ascher '68 and Barbara marvelous opportunity for those who con- to Barbara Ushkow Deane '51 who has completed a Reinhold Rauch '63. Chairmen of Hostesses were tribute, including the editor, to again commit three-year term as Chairman. Enthusiastic alumni Susan Toepfer '70 and Rosamund Reeq Veit '44. In themselves to the College. It gives readers a response was reported to the Telethons which all more than seventy alumni were actively in- volved in the benefit. chance to learn what happens to various were held in New York, Boston, Washington, San people once they've left the campus, and a Francisco, and Bennington. They have helped to Cooperating galleries were the Andre Emmerich chance to share their thoughts along with raise the level of the Alumni Fund and have been Gallery, Inc., the Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, Inc., those of administrators and faculty. Not least, fun to work on. the John Bernard Myers Gallery, and the Lawrence Rubin Gallery. in a period of financial stringency on cam- Mrs. Richard S. Emmet, Chairman of the Board of puses, it is a source of income. Many alumni . Sponsors of the tour received a silk screen print Trustees, attended the first session of the Alumni who were contacted for the Alumni Fund in a limited edition of the Paul Feeley painting, Council to discuss the search to be undertaken to during this spring's telethons, stated that they MAIA, made available for this purpose through the find a successor to President Bloustein. She paid would contribute to the College because of generosity of Alexander Liberman. tribute to his strong years of leadership at Ben- the alumni QUADRILLE." nington noting that the college has emerged from a period of unprecedented national campus turmoil In Michael Steiner's studio. A second decision was the unanimous vote by without permanent scars, that the college is fir.ally the Council to continue to sell informal notepaper, on solid financial footing with a balanced budget, hand silk-screened with a Paul Feeley print, to and that the decision made during his presidency benefit the Scholarship Fund. Cynthia Sheldon for the college to become coeducational has proved Smith '56 described the project as one which to be probably the most important step taken in its projects the Bennington image, and showed the 39-year history. Council how individual sheets of notepaper can be matted and framed as gifts. Order forms for the The thirty-four Council members (Jttending the notepaper will be included in each issue of meeting came from as far away as San Francisco, QUADRILLE, and Regional Chairmen agreed to Los Angeles, and Chicago; and represented the assume direct and active responsibility for Board of Directors, the Regional Groups, the Lila Nields greets Matthew A. Meyer, husband of distribution and sales. Alumni Fund and other standing committees, and Ernestine Cohen Meyer '37, a trustee In Larry Poons's the Board of Trustees. Although the meeting was . Frank Stella ,s studio.. '· studio.· Stanley ·G. Mortimer, husband of Kathleen Harriman Mortimer ·40 looks on. The third decision is best described as an en- necessarily abbreviated since it was followed thusiastic response to a suggestion by Edward immediately by the triennial Reunion Weekend, Thommen '40 that the Alumni Association compile 1971 REUNION WEEKEND there were opportunities to attend classes, to see Seventy-five alumnae came back to Bennington a catalogue of alumni goods and services which College's history. student dance and drama productions, and to cover May 21-23. About one-third were accompanied by will be a clearing house for buyers and sellers, and the front of Fruitrich House with a fresh coat of red their husbands; a few brought children. They came Former faculty were encouraged to return, also benefit the Alumni Fund. A committee has paint. for a variety of reasons, and departed with varied and many did. Howard Nemerov came from been formed and hopes to publish a preliminary St. Louis; Franklin Ford from Cambridge; Tom Members of the Council take very seriously their reactions. Some of their thoughts are expressed issue before Christmas. below. Brockway, Bob Woodworth, and Lucien Hanks responsibility to be informed about Bennington in joined us throughout. It was fun to watch The results of the 1971 election were announced "I can't even pretend to be objective about order to understand the changes which take place alumni and faculty gather Friday night - to the Council. Barbara Goldberg Rohdie '63 will such a great Reunion. Joan Hutton Landis at an ever accelerating rate and to be able to whoops of recognition rang out loud and serve a three-year term as Secretary of the Alumni arranged a wonderful program. Edith communicate their information and understanding clear. I was grateful to those who wore name Association. She has been Chairman of the North- Dinlocker Kuhn '45, Nancy Kluge Hall '46, and to other alumni and. throughout their various tags. I can't learn more than one hundred ern New Jersey Regionai Group and a Member- Ella Russell Torrey '47 really spread the word communities. They also take seriously the names in a day! Cocktails and dinner which at-Large of the Alumni Association Board of and got out the 25-year classes. I was responsibility which they know is theirs to increase were to have been held on the Dickinson Directors. Jean Campbell Clegg '56 was elected delighted that in all, twenty-six classes were general alumni financial support in this period Science Building terrace were rained out, and Treasurer for one year. Members-at-large elect~d represented. For me this was a rare chance to when it is absolutely essenti?I to the continued squeezed under the eaves or indoors. lt didn't for a three-year term to the Alumni Council are get to know alumni from all periods in the operation of the college. matter! Right after dinner (in fact, almost 54 Quadrille Quadrille 55 before coffee) we moved next door to Tish- Some of us went "Beyond Existentialism;" man Auditorium where an articulate and some painted Fruitrich House. Husbands could thoughtful student panel gave us a good golf or fish. We read poetry and prose; we picture of campus life now. had a chance to learn practical ecology. Saturday seminars made us think. They Everyone seemed to have a marvelous time. offered something for everyone - and at- And even the rain stopped. Howard Nemerov, tendance was heavy. But there was time to Bernard Malamud, Franklin Ford, Barbara talk wJ!~· students in Commons, to revisit our Howes Smith '37 - and so many others - · old rooms in the student houses, to talk with contributed to one of the best weekends the faculty, and to wander around the imaginable. Lionel Nowak arrahged a faculty- campus. We ate our box lunches in front of student concert Saturday night that was just Jennings where we could watch Anita Shaffer great. Margrill's water sculpture in action. I'd like to Driving home in bright sunshine Sunday I see it on the New York City streets. It was a thought of the wonderful and challenging beautiful frame for Mt. Anthony and the experience I had at Bennington and concluded Bennington Battle Monument. that it's the same now for many of the present Everyone enjoyed cocktails and dinner at students. A weekend at Bennington makes us the McCullough Mansion in North Bennington. realize that today's problems on campuses are vast. We can help - with understanding, What a palatial piece of Victorian ar- relation to youth culture, and called for Howard Nemerov's verse worksnop. wisdom, and intelligent support." chitecture! We had a chance to say goodbye change - within and without. Ella Russell T~rrey '47 to the Blousteins and to wish them the best of If the superb seminars and Sunday poetry everything at Rutgers. In fact, we had a "It was good to be on the vigorous Ben- reading are examples of "continuing chance to "mug" Ed. It's a tradition in the nington scene and to examine the handsome education at Bennington" I hope we shall Alumni Association . . . to present a Ben- new buildings. The faculty-student concert in have much, much more." nington mug to outgoing Board members in tjcomfortably familiar Carriage Barn was as Carol Black livaudais '49 appreciation of their work. We're sorry to see ex iting and varied as any I have ever heard, the Blousteins leave, but proud that they are an for pastoral therapy Jennings lawn where "Almost every class had at least one or two sought after." we picnicked, graduation-style, was ideal. The representatives present for Reunion. Many Nancy Reynolds Cooke '47 Vermont landscape was spring green, and the came back for their twenty-fifth. It was President, Alumni Association lilacs and apple trees were just beginning to delightful to see familiar faces and to meet bloom. other former students. The campus has new "Came friends old and new, rain, wonderful Of real relevance to alumni-parents was faces - student houses, the marvelous faculty, good food and drink, exciting President Bloustein's "state of the college" Crosset Library, Dickinson Science Building, seminars, and more rain. message, which viewed Bennington in Tishman Auditorium. The "Flats" between the town and the college have changed and are At the reunion built up with restaurants, motels, and shopping centers. But the old Barn, Commons, Jennings, the Monument, covered bridges, and lovely surrounding hills are still there. Rainy and sunny days and clean air bring bock fond memories. There ore more moles around now (bearded, of course) and girls don't bother to wear bras (oh, youth!). but dungarees and shirttails haven't changed." Wilhelmina Eaton '55·

"For myself, I can only say that returning to Bennington is a rare experience of aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional nostalgia. There were many - more than I expected - familiar faces, both faculty and alumni. Best

of all, eternally green I hope, were the LisleCartera trusteetalked mountains, the barn red buildings, and this about"Crystalgazing at education." remarkable place where we were fortunate Uz Corey Gutne '52 Dodi Coffin Harv# '42 enough to have spent some time - Ben- nington College." Frultrlcn House gets a new coot of point from alumni. Sondra Parkoff Henry '50

56 Quadrille Quadrille 5 7 Ben 8e/ltt and Bernard Malamud enjoy Bloody Mary's after tile poetry reading. Alumrii (Gleaned from mail received at the Office of Alumni Services and from the newspaper clipping service. Editor's plea to alumni: send us Class your news - we're interested, and so are all your Bennington friends.l Notes

Born: Deaths: to SUE RAYNER WARBURG, a '68 '37 first child, a son, Matthew Frank to PHOEBE PETTINGELL MARIAN SIECK DEHNE, May 29, Warburg, December 13, 1969. HYMAN, a first child, a son. 1971 '57 Malcolm Donald Hyman, November '39 President Blousteln addresses alumni to NATALIE FEILER PODELL. a 12, 1970. MYRA RUSH LAUTERER, fourth child, fourth son, Alex Feiler '69 December 31, 1967. on Sunday morning Podell, January 28, 1969. to JUDITH ZENGE GRUM- '55 '61 BACHER, a first child, a daughter, BAR BAR A SI L VE R MARCUS, to MARJORIE McKINLEY Sara KatherineGrumbacher,March November 11, 1970. BHAVNANI, a first child, a son, 25, 1971 . '63 Raoul Bhavnani, March 1971. ,.,.- • CATHERINE JOHNSTON to AVIVA DUBITZKY NEUMAN, a 1riftrrtageS: GREENE, December 18. 1970. first child, a daughter, Rachel Dina Neuman, May 11, 1971 '44 '62 . SYLVIA SWAN HUNTER to An- News: to NANCY JANOVER CARLINER, .thony Trawick Bouscaren, in a second child, second son, Beaufort, S.C .. May 29, 1971. '36 November 7, 1969. '46 GERTRUDE Doughty SWARTZ '63 SHIRLEY COHEN GALEF to writes that her youngest son, John, to PAULA HOPKINS HAYES, a Charles V .' Goelz, in New York. May graduated from Colorado College in 15, 1971. Water sculpture second child, first daughter, June. Her brother, Ned Doughty, '52 by Anita Scllaffer Margrlll '58 Patricia Venusa Hopkins-Wright known to many of her classmates, Hayes, November 22, 1969. RHODA TURTEL TAUB to Herbert died in Williamstown, to MARION BREEZE WILLIAMS, a C. Rosenthal, March 3, 1970. Massachusetts March is, 1970. first child, a daughter, Marion '54 ALENE POTTER WIDMAYER DuBose Lebling Williams, April 24, JOAN HOL Tto Dr. Robert G . Oates. after a number of "careers," most 1971. July 25, 1970. recently that of assistant librarian to SUZANNE HECHT JUHASZ. a '59 at the Howe Library, Hanover, N .H .. third child, third daughter, Antonia JUDITH A. SNYDER to H. Paul has entered private life again. She is Janis Juhasz, October 21, 1970. Schaeffer, in Berkeley, California. riding, doing volunteer work tor '65 '61 Planned Parenthood of the Upper to CARYN LEVY MAGID, a second GAIL CHERNE BEATTY to Dr. Valley (New Hampshire-Vermont), child, second daughter, Mariannne Richard Gambino, in New York, gardening, and fully enjoying her Eve Magid, April 13, 1971. March 27, 1971. "freedom." to BARBARA LAWRENCE TRAIN, '63 a first child, a son, Michael Train, DENI LESAVOY to William z. '37 May 25, 1970. Stevenson, in Mamaroneck, New DORIS T. BAUDER as Conservation '66 York, March 21, 1971. Chairman of the Tucson (Arizona J to ELLEN BESKIND SMART. a '66 SUSAN VOLWILER to E. Dade Garden Club, wrote three papers on first child, a son, David Archibald environment-ecology: "Pollution Smart, June 26, 1971. Gunning 11, in Seattle, Washington, Here and Elsewhere;" "Pollution to DEBORAH POLLACK June 15, 1971. '69 and What To Do About It" and "The SCHANZER, a first child, a Balance of Nature and Prognosis tor daughter, Leah Simone Schanzer, SARA LUKINSON to Yigal Israeli, the future." She also wrote a paper January 8, 1970. in Bethesda, Maryland, March 28, on organic gardening in Arizona and '67 1971. on Cape Cod. to LAREN CROFT BRILL. a first '71 ANN MEY ER ROTH SCH I LO, child, a daughter, Stephanie Brill, DORIS DRONSKI to Edward Chicago, Ill., is now Executive March 1969; a second ctiild, a son, Zelinsky, in New Haven, Con- Assistant to the Director of Jewish Aaron Brill, April 1971. necticut, June 6, 1971. Children's Bureau. She is also a member of a state committee to ERRATUM: Our apologies to Mrs. Sheldon Abrams develop and plan for the early location and care of children with (Gail Gutterman '58) whose name was un- handicaps. Her son, Michael, a fortunately omitted from the List of Donors in the mathematician, teaches at Harvard. Her daughter, JoAnn, graduated Alumni issue of QUADRILLE; Volume 5, Number 2. this june from Bennington. RUTH MAGNUSSON WATHEN-

Quadrille 59 58 Quadrille r

. nominated for a For mentor P.rize, in April. pens i ve , and i mpressive en - OUN-N writes that her daughter anc( she is presently working on a NU ALA O'DONNELL PELL visited tertain ing for teen-agers. graduated from the Rhode Island second novel. Eleanor White Wright in Santa School of Design, where she majored Barbara, Cal. during a trip to the '50 in textile design. '44 West Coast for the marriage of her son, Christopher, in San Francisco. PATRICIA BIRSH BECKER staged SHIRLEY BROUGHTON'S all the musical numbers for "The '38 "Theatre for Ideas" had a spring Me Nobody Knows" presented at the )( Alumni festival during which it sponsored a '47 Helen Hayes Theatre, New York. BARBARA DEMING recently had a concert, six performances of collection of essays publ ished in a EDITH BONOFF BIRNBAUM and VIRGINIA ALLEN JENSEN has satirical dance-drama which she her family leave the city for six had picture books for children book REVOLUTION AND wrote and directed, and two public EQUILIBRIUM .. months each year to work on thei r published in seven languages. Her forums, one of which was the EMILY JAMISON KNAPP still lives farm in Columbia County, New most recent book, LARS PETER'S Women's Liberation chat featuring York, where they grow and process BICYCLE , received an award in near Toronto where her husband is Take Norman .Mailer surrounded by the Vice President and General fruit and vegetables. All members of Helsinki , F inland in May 1971 , from l enemy . the family work on the farm . The Association of the Authors of Manager of Canadian Stackpole, CAROLYN ROBINSON CASSADY Ltd. Her oldest daughter, a 1969 x BARBARA FERRELL HERO of Juvenile Literature in Finland . She is writing a biography of her late ~ambridge, Ma. had an exhibit th is has l ived i n West Germany for ·two graduate of Boston University, was husband and his literary friends, married in 1970. Her second .s.pring in Bloom ingdale ' s Art years , but w i ll return to which is to be published by Gallery in New York City. She is a Copenhagen . Denmark where her daughter graduated from Hollins in Doubleday next year. She also 1970 and works in New York City. painter closely identified w ith New husband, Flemm ing, will establish XNote paints. England's avant garde "Visionary the international headquarters for She has a son at Yale, a daughter at Please ta.ke ten minutes to return your questionnaires. We JANET FREY HARTE is Finance Cell" movement. The aim is to his business firm . She continues to York University, Toronto, and still need the information to update our records, to enable us to Chairman of the South Texas extend present art forms into new operate the International Children's •mother daughter to go. publish a new edition of the Alumni Directory, and to Jet Planned Parenthood Center, Corpus levels of consciousness. Her first JEAN HINTON ROSNER and her us know where to turn intelligently when we need Book Service. Christi, Texas. showing in California 'in 1948, was family operate a summer camp for specialized help from alumni. GAIL GREIG SCHLEGEL, PHEBE INESON BELL took a six followed by extensive showings in Publicity Director at Hill and Wang youngsters, ages 9· 16, at Cape weeks jewelry-making course at Breton island, Nova Scotia , Canada . various parts of the United States .• Publ ishers, New York, has been Haystack Mountain Crafts School elected Treasurer of the New York The camp grew out of family She was also actively involved with (Vermont). She will continue her summers spent at Sight Point, '41 Earth Day. A large group descended '48 Chapter of the Women's National silver jewelry workshop next fail . Book Association . always with extra ch i ldren on hand. BARBARA HEYWOOD into the Acequaia Madre Ditch to Last year she had fifteen students in NAOMI SIEGLER SAVAGE of BROWNELL has completed her clean it. Arlington and eight in Manchester. Princeton, N .J. has executed a '51 '39 sixth year on the Bromley Mt. Last fall MARJORIE HANDWERK PATRICIA NEWMAN WOOLNER photo-engraving mural, eig'ht feet CAROL DIAMOND FEUER has (Vermont) Ski Patrol. She has two DUNCAN opened the Duncan Studio is a member of the guest faculty at high and fifty feet long, for the wall JANET HEYWOOD KINNICUTT appeared in a number of chamber grandsons. of Speech Arts in Shaker Heights Westchester's Marymount College of the main entrance hall of the now has two grandchi ldren. Jennifer Ohio, where she teaches small I· Lyndon Baines Johnson Library at concerts with the American Moen Motley, born September 10, JOAN THOMSON DAY of San for a four-week full credit dance Marino, California, spent two classes as well as privately. Pupils the University of Texas campus in Chamber Ensemble and the Long 1969, and Davenport West IV, born course. The course is given between Island Little Orchestra . Most months last winter with her range in age from eight to eighty. the fall and spring semester in a Austin . January 6, 1970. recently she has toured in a number daughter in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, JANE ALLUM GRANT writes that period designated as "College In- GRACE RUSSELL SHARPLES is JEAN H. LEE is now Supervisor of one of her paintings was included in Chairman of Volunteers and doing of East Coast cities as violinist in Staff Development in the Douglas Africa . Her first grandchild, a girl, terim." was born in February. the Annua I Exhibition of Artists of research for The Franklin Institute, "Duo Concertante" with another County Welfare Administration ; and .Central New York at Munson Philadelphia . alumna, CORA GORDON Instructor in the Graduate School of VIDA GINSBERG DEMING has '45 Williams Proctor Institute, Utica, SILBERMAN '60. Social Work at the University of been teaching Literature at the and that a rug which she designed JOAN MERRISS CLARK is moving '49 JOAN HUTTON LANDIS received Nebraska . Juilliard School for four years. She to Long Jsland. She will be and made w~s exhibited at Everson PHYLLIS SIDENBERG BENHAM the degree of Master of Arts in MARY JONES RILEYof Baltimore tool< a six-month leave to spend in Audiovisual Coordinator for Museum, Syracuse. is teaching educationally han- Liberal Studies at Wesleyan writes that her oldest daughter is Paris while her husband was on Libraries in Nassau County. PETIE CUMMINGS PALMER dicapped students at South High University, Middletown, Conn ., in attending the Chinese University of sabbatica I. Her younger daughter, MARGOT LOEBL GUMPORT is play harpsichord and piano in the June. She is an instructor of English Hong Kong . She and her husband Maeve, just finished her freshman School in Bakersfield, Cal. The class Palmer Chamber Ensemble. The Chairman of the Science Depart- at North Adams (Mass.) State plan to attend the international year at Bennington. is called "Independent Progress" group started as an informal ment at Dalton School, New York College. Tuberculosis Conference in Moscow City, teaching Chemistry and and includes students grades 9-12. gathering of musicians in her home, BARBARA KENT TURNER of during July. planning curriculum. Her husband MARY WHITE BOYD of Geneva, '42 but the demand for its talents has led Wash ington, D.C., writes that her BARBARA SAPINSLEY received is professor of surgery at N .Y.U. Illinois, was elected to the Board of to many area concerts, including husband, George, is Chairman of the her M.A . in History at New York LILIAN OEISSLER BOWLER is Medical School. Trustees of the Township Library, performances at the State National Mediation Board. Her University in June 1970. She has Associate Producer of the Antique FLORA BOND HOLLINGER is 1971, and is a Director of the Geneva University at Stony Brook, the daughter, Robin, was married in written numerous magazine articles Festival Theatre in Buhl, Idaho, attending the Harvard Graduate League of Women Voters. Suffolk Museum in Stony Brook, the November 1970. and a book "FROM KAISER TO where her husband, Aldrich, is HELEN FRANKENTHALER had a 13rookhaven National Laboratories, School of Education where she is HITLER," and has done picture Producer-Director . They also one-woman show in April at the the Old South Haven Church, and the working on her Masters in research on others. She is on the CBS operate the Snake River Pottery in Gertrude Kasie Gallery, Detroit. '52 Parrish Art Museum in Southamp- Education and Social Policy. News staff and has written scripts Bliss, Idaho. SARAH WINSTON ROBINSON '47 SALLY ROUNDS BRUCH, husband ton. JULIA BARNWELL for both television and radio. CHARLOTTE WATSON COLE was among those attending the Frank, and their six children are EVE GLASS SHAKESPEARE has HOUSEKEEPER of Newton, N .J ., recently accepted a job with the is teaching elementary art. Her son opening . enjoying a new home on six acres of National Park Service at Baudelier written a book, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, SALLY BROWN LUTYENS is in - land in Storrs, Connecticut. Frank is '40 following a camping trip in Europe is now attending Bennington. National Monument near Los MARY ST. JOHN DOUGLAS, a structor of music composition at the now Associate Director of Medical MARGARET MYERS BYRNE of Alamos, N .M., where her husband is with three fa m ii ies and three Cambridge School, Weston, Services at University of Con- Volkswagen "campers." research chemist in Bethesda, Md. Plattsburgh, N.Y . is a free-lance a Park Ranger. For the past nine is one of the first two women to be Massachusetts. She teaches piano necticut. Sally is helping a local writer for ADIRONDACK LI FE . She years she has been a data-analyst in ELEANOR METCALF SCOTT privately and composes music. group of dance enthusiasts start a returne

62 Quadrille Quadrille 63 is a student at the Institute of discussion groups for the Cincinnati University in June. In September English Pl1ilology. Family Service. Her husband will be she wi 11 be a teaching fellow there SHELAGH GORDON LEVIN of ordained next year as a rabbi. and continue studies toward a PhD. Marshfield, Mass. is currently the ALLISON SIMMONS CHAPIN is Her course is a Freshman Writing Production Coordinator for enrolled in New York University's Seminar, "The Imaginative "Boomtown," a children's TV show doctoral program in Comparative Process." in Boston. Literature. Her husband teaches at SARA LUKINSON ISRAELland her DEBORAH POLLACK SCHANZER Columbia University. husband will move to Israel in is having four textbooks on remedial CORNELIA C. CROCKER is September. She has been working reading published by Sadlier and Co. teaching grades 2 and 3 in 00. er, for a documentary film company in in the near future. Vermont, and playing chamber Washington, D.C . as a production JOYCE SPECTOR ZELLER music (cello l whenever possible. assistant. designs products and furniture She spends much time and effort on JEAN and K.K. HOLABIRD are in which she exhibits in her New York anti-pollution in Vermont. Rome where they have been party City office. Currently she has BARBARA FISHER was awarded a scene extras' in the filming of designed the new Time-Life PhD in English at Columbia "Excuse Me, My Name is Ricco exhibition book centers which Time- University. She was the recipient of Poppelayo." Life expects to open across the the President's Fellowship for 1970- country in the near future. Currently 71 and the Honorary President's there are three: in Portland, Pitts- Fellowship for 1971-72. '70 burgh, and Los Angeles. CAROL LEVIN has been working as MICHAEL KALINOWSKI is at film editor for WTTW. Chicago's UNESCO in Paris, teaching English '67 public TV station, and doing free and theatre to children. Last winter JOAN HARKNESS of Ann Arbor, lance editing as well . She recently he spent the NRT in Haiti where he Michigan was one of seventeen completed a film for the Muscular taught and directed plays. He hopes student composers to receive the Dystrophy Association. She trained to return to direct the orphanage 1970 Broadcast Music, Inc. Award in for the position of "group-encounter- school for a year, but must raise the April. Her winning piece was en- facilitator" ar'." this summer will money for his salary and materials. titled "Nothing of Dreams." lead groups a, Oasis, Chicago's He feels that "here is a chance to BARBARA DAVENPORT ROSOF growth center. create a program that mav well received an M.S. in May 1971, from NANCY WAYBUR graduated from have an effect on the future of Haiti. the Simmons College Graduate the University of California at .. There is no education taking place School of Social Work. In June she Berkeley in August 1970. She will in Haiti now. Less than 10 per cent of and her husband moved to In- start to work for her doctor a I degree the population is literate.'" dianapolis, Indiana, where Barry in English in the fall. FRANCES W. DORSEY after will be Senior Engineer of a steel JANE ELKINGTON WOHL graduating from the University of mill. received a B.A. in June from the Pennsylvania, expects "to go back MARILYN SIBLEY is presentlv University of California at Santa to the earth" at Earthworks in working on a PhD in German Barbara. She majored in art with Ontario, Canada. Literature at Cornell University. emphasis in Printmaking. MARTIN BAROLSKY is employed She received her M.A. in Germany in the editorial department of and taught there in the European '69 "Magazines for Industry." Division of the University of LESLIE BERG is substitute Maryland until 1969. teaching in rural West Virigna. She '71 LOIS LICHTENSTEIN WILKINS is a1so tarms and makes clothes. INGE-LISE ECKMANN was Education Editor and her husband is knitted and velvet, for various awarded a fuli fellowship to the Managing Editor of the "New shops. State University of New York's Jersey Herald," a daily and Sundav CAROLE BOLSEY lives in Boston Graduate Program at Cooperstown. newspaper serving northwestern where she is teaching English as a She is in a three-year program New Jersey. second language to illiterate Spanish leading to the degree of Master of adults at Northeastern Uni4'ersity. Fine Art and Art Conservation. '68 KRISTINE BRIGHTENBACK just DORIS DRONSKI ZELINSKY SHARON ZYNC ALPER is in Cin- completed her first year of Graduate visited Bennington with her cinnati after spending a vear in School at Princeton University. husband. She graduated from Yale Israel. She is an editorial assistant, SALLY LLOYD ELION received an in June 1971. Her husband, Edward, and leads "P1ays for Living" M.A. in English from Tufts is a member of Yale's Class of '72.

Graduation BENNINGTON COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 1971

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